Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth burial on Monday
In this March 14, 2006 file photo, The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth poses inside of the The Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati. Credit: AP
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- When a little-known black Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King took the helm of the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott in 1955, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was already in Birmingham trying to start a movement, but nobody was paying attention.
Shuttlesworth was from a small church. His credentials and pedigree made it easy for local whites to dismiss him as a radical. Until King came to Birmingham, Shuttlesworth couldn't get the national press to recognize his city as the embodiment of the horrors of the segregated South.
He was just another black preacher getting beat up, said former Atlanta mayor, congressman and UN ambassador Andrew Young, who worked alongside King and Shuttlesworth in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. All three men helped establish the organization in 1957.
"They were sued together, they helped organize SCLC together," Young said of King and Shuttlesworth. "He wanted the spotlight . . . but there wasn't but one Martin Luther King."
. The reason for the delay: The dedication of the King Memorial on the National Mall, sending most of Shuttlesworth's civil rights colleagues to Washington last weekend.
Otherwise, they would have likely been in Birmingham remembering Shuttlesworth. "His friends and Martin's friends were the same," Young said. "But you don't have two memorials at the same time if you want your friends to come." -- AP
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