Shuttlesworth takes helm as interim president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Jet, Jan 19, 2004

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once described as "the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South," now leads the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which he, King and others co-founded 47 years ago.

Shuttlesworth, 81, who has been SCLC vice president, will serve as interim president and CEO of the Atlanta-based civil rights organization replacing Martin L. King III, who recently stepped down to head the King Center For Non-Violent Social Change (JET, Dec. 8, 2003).

Pastor of Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Shuttlesworth said he'll focus on strengthening and increasing the number of SCLC affiliates nationwide.

"My problem is that younger people are not as concerned about it as they ought to be, and I want to move more younger people into the mainstream of those who fight for justice," he said. "I hope my history will help inspire younger people to take the civil rights struggle more seriously."

A legendary civil rights crusader and minister, Shuttlesworth battled segregation laws in Birmingham nearly a decade before helping to organize the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery March which dramatized denial of voting rights of Blacks in Selma, AL.

On Christmas Eve in 1956, his Birmingham home was destroyed by a bomb and a year later, a mob of Whites beat him with whips and chains when he tried to enroll his children in an all-White public school.

Shuttlesworth, who has held the post of SCLC secretary as well, will serve in his new post until a permanent president is selected. He welcomes the added duties: " I believe you ought to wear out rather than rust out," he said.