The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, (click title to entry - thank you) a civil rights firebrand known as "the Wild Man from Birmingham," died Wednesday at age 89. His confrontational tactics baited White leadership there into violent attacks against marchers that were televised worldwide, helping the civil rights movement to become a global phenomenon.
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The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth: Fearlessness personified
Written by Fcadmin | 06 October 2011BIRMINGHAM, ALA. – For years, the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth put his body on the line in the struggle against racial segregation.
On Christmas night 1956, 16 sticks of dynamite were detonated outside Shuttlesworth’s bedroom as he slept with his family in the Bethel Baptist Church parsonage in Birmingham, Ala. – then known as "Bombingham" because of the frequency of explosions targeting civil rights activists.
No one was injured, although shards of glass and wood pierced Shuttlesworth’s coat and hat left hanging on a hook. (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s home in Montgomery, Ala. had been bombed months earlier. King and his family also survived the bombing.)…
