Biography
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was one of the central leaders of the Birmingham civil-rights movement. He became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953, helped create the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in 1956 after Alabama banned the NAACP, and later became a key SCLC leader. He worked with CORE during the Freedom Rides, helped force the Birmingham desegregation crisis of 1963, and later helped organize the Selma-to-Montgomery voting-rights campaign. Martin Luther King Jr. called him "the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South." He was arrested and jailed more than 30 separate times for his activism.
The Southern Courier’s November 4–5, 1967 account states that Fred Shuttlesworth had gone to jail during the preceding week and describes him arriving at Birmingham’s airport in late October before four other ministers began serving their contempt sentences. This establishes October 1967 service and release for his earlier contempt case, but not exact individual endpoints or a measured five days served.
