Mourners praise civil rights activist Shuttlesworth

Mourners praise civil rights activist Shuttlesworth

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) - Those who toiled alongside the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth through the beatings and bombings of the civil rights era were among the hundreds gathered Monday to celebrate his legacy in the city he fought to liberate from segregation. Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a native of Alabama, worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the civil rights movement. He recalled meeting Shuttlesworth in May 1961 during the Freedom Rides. theGrio slideshow: Shuttlesworth, a civil rights hero Lewis called the preacher "one of the founding fathers of the New America," who put his body on the line to end segregation and racial discrimination. "Fear, real fear, smothered the air, not just throughout Birmingham, but throughout the American South," Lewis said. "Birmingham is different today. Alabama is different today. America is different today, because this man passed our way." Shuttlesworth's fire and faith brought international attention to the brutality of legalized discrimination in the South. For decades after the 1963 campaign in Birmingham, Shuttlesworth continued to fight racial injustice in the city, even after moving to Cincinnati. Shuttlesworth died Oct. 5. His funeral follows a Sunday memorial held in his honor. Members of the family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. attended, along with the Revs. Joseph Lowery, Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson, and the widow of the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy. theGrio: Remembering civil rights 'warrior' Shuttlesworth Republican Gov. Robert Bentley spoke frankly about his own experiences with segregation, growing up on the other side of Jim Crow as a young white man in Shelby County and later as a student at the University of Alabama. "Little did I know ... that I would stand here in a spirit of gratitude as your governor to honor a man who led the charge for a spirit of change," Bentley said. The governor told the mostly black audience of mourners that before men like Shuttlesworth agitated for an end to segregation, he never gave much thought to the culture of racial discrimination that hung over society. He thanked his fellow Alabamian for undoing what he called "the teachings of a misdirected society."