Republican News · Thursday 30 May 2002

Civil rights struggles cross paths in Kentucky

BY MARK GUILFOYLE

Covington, Kentucky, on 11 March this year was almost a surreal place for two champions of civil rights to meet. Here was Gerry Adams, fresh from ringing the World Peace Bell in Newport, Kentucky, entering the Roman Catholic Basilican Cathedral of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky. Five hundred people had assembled to hear Gerry give an important address on the role of religion in the North of Ireland. But first, it was back to the church sacristy, to greet others participating in the evening's programme.

Introductions were made, and then Gerry approached the elderly African-American fellow seated in front of a kneeler This gentleman was to celebrate his 80th birthday in a few days, but at any moment he could rightly celebrate a lifetime's commitment to civil rights for black Americans. Gerry sat on the kneeler and spoke easily to the last living link to the American civil rights movement, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.

Rev. Shuttlesworth had seen it all. He faced death eight times, and perhaps the most inspirational event in his life was in 1956, when he survived a dynamite blast. The Ku Klux Klan blew up his home with 16 sticks of dynamite, and he described how "the floor beneath me was gone, but underneath me was my mattress. I knew God was there. And I felt more peaceful in that moment then I ever have in my entire life."

The next year, he survived a vicious beating as he tried to enroll his daughters in an all-white Alabama school.

In 1959, Rev. Shuttlesworth battled the Birmingham, Alabama Fire Department. For months, the authorities would send the fire department to harass and intimidate participants during gatherings led by Rev. Shuttlesworth. As sirens drowned out the speakers, the firefighters would typically charge the gathering, shouting that there were reports of a fire in the church. One night, as Rev. Shuttlesworth directed an evacuation, he famously stated: "Ya'all think it's a fire in here. You know there ain't no fire here. The kind of fire we have in here you can't put out with hoses and axes! (Hence, the title of an excellent biography of Rev. Shuttlesworth, "A Fire You Can't Put Out," University of Alabama Press).

That Rev. Shuttlesworth was a primary leader of the American civil rights movement is beyond question. In 1965, he marched arm-in-arm with Rev. Martin Luther King in the historic "Bloody Sunday" march from Birmingham to Selma, Alabama.

But here he was in Kentucky in 2002. As he sat behind Gerry on the altar of the Cathedral, Gerry delivered a history lesson on the non-sectarian nature of the quest for a United Ireland. The 500 assembled listened intently, but as Gerry finished and as Rev. Shuttlesworth slowly strode to the podium, you could hear a pin drop in that gothic hall. Rev. Shuttlesworth delivered a humble, eloquent benediction, a simple plea for world peace from a man who had seen awful violence. In that moment, everyone present was completely convinced that world peace was not only possible, but urgently imperative.

Reflecting back on that evening now, one has to wonder why must history so cruelly repeat itself. Why must pipe bombs be hurled at nationalists the same way sticks of dynamite were lobbed at Rev. Shuttlesworth? Why must Ardoyne schoolgirls suffer abuse the same way Rev. Shuttlesworth's daughters were harassed as they went to school? How can "police" feel free to intimidate citizens the same way "firefighters" felt so free to roust black Alabamans?

The only way forward lies in the limitless optimism of leaders like Rev. Shuttlesworth and Gerry Adams. That optimism was firmly on display from both men this past March in Covington, Kentucky.