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Introducti.on from King in that his primary identifying role throughout his career remained that of a local pastor. After the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, King served only as the copastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church and held almost exclusively homiletical responsibilities . In contrast, Shuttlesworth conducted his civil rights activities with his hands still tightly grasping the pastoral reins of his local churches. His pastoral ministry provided the c~ntext for his civil rights activities; his concern for social justice was central to his "care of souls" and his prophetic proclamation. His role always remained that of pastor-preacher rather than that of "civil rights leader;' as white journalists and politicians preferred to think of him. Yet his efforts to bear full pastoral responsibilities alongside his civil rights activities created significant tensions in both his church and his community. Over the years his authoritarian leadership style alienated many persons in his larger black communities, contributing to conflict and schism in each of his congregations . How Shuttlesworth balanced these roles and how laypersons in the local black churches interacted with him thus became an important aspect of his civil rights life. Furthermore, his dual roles as pastor and civil rights leader, each with a different set of problems and expectations, poignantly brought certain pressures to bear on his personal life. Members of his family, as well as Shuttlesworth himself, bore the scars of his involvement "on the inside;' as one of Shuttlesworth's followers once observed.3 Related to his blended role as civil rights preacher was his often stormy relationship with an older generation of African American ministers in Birmingham whose civil rights commitments were less public and whose preaching to "this-worldly" concerns was less direct than Shuttlesworth's. Much of this rivalry had to do with ministerial jealousies similar to those between King and Joseph H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention of the United States of America, Incorporated (NBC). Once events had convinced Shuttlesworth that God was directing his involvement in civil rights, his certainty fostered a forthright insistence that other ministers join the fight-in his typical mode of expression, that they act as well as talk. His willingness to sacrifice his own life and even the lives of his family translated into a visceral impatience, implied and expressed in pointed fashion, with anyone (particularly other ministers ) who did not share his commitment or his timetable. His actions thus pushed him to the head of the line of older clergy vying for leadership in the African American community and produced considerable controversy. The situation in Birmingham also included class tensions. Unlike the 3 Introduction middle-class, urban, and increasingly urbane Martin Luther King, Shuttlesworth emerged from a relatively impoverished southern rural working-class family. He possessed neither the high-caliber education nor the rhetorical polish of King. Shuttlesworth better exemplified the poorer backgrounds of most southern blacks in the civil rights era, which helps explain the long-lasting loyalty Shuttlesworth won from his followers in Birmingham. Although some pastors and laypersons in the silk-stocking, middle-class black churches disliked his "demonstrate now, work out the details later" style, his charisma and confrontational personality attracted working-class blacks in large numbers. He often aroused his supporters at church or mass meetings with the unpolished rhetoric of the black folk pulpit, but he primarilyappealed to them through daring acts of defiance against his principal antagonist, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, Birmingham's commissioner of public safety. His actions inspired the courage and confidence of ordinary blacks who loved and adored him. An activist professor at Birmingham's Miles College thus argued: "The rank and file, they were the ones who believed strongly. They were the ones who adored, they were the ones who just loved the man, because he could articulate the innermost feelings of the rank and file:' In blunt, unembellished terms, his expression of raw emotionality captured their feelings in ways that even King, with his oratorical polish, sometimes did not. More important, .however, his bold confrontations fundamentally embodied the feelings of poor and working -class blacks. Longtime friend James Armstrong compared Shuttlesworth to King, noting: "I would follow Shuttlesworth quicker than 1 would Martin Luther King because, to me, he was a much stronger man. Now Martin knew how to say it; Fred know how to do it.... I've had good preachers to preach to me, but Fred has preached to me in action:' Colonel Stone...

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