Fred Shuttlesworth, Psalm 27, and the Courage to Live Faithfully
Photo by Emery Muhozi on Unsplash
It’s Christmas day. You and your family are celebrating at home, and one of your close friends stops by to chat. As you talk, the conversation turns to more serious matters. As his pastor, you welcome the heavy questions, but you don’t want to worry your kids, so you move to your bedroom for a quiet place to talk. You can still hear your kids laughing, talking, and singing in the living room as your friend talks.
And then, fire explodes from under your bed. Wood splinters as your mattress sinks into what is now a gaping hole where the floor used to be. Screams come from the other room where your family is. When your vision finally clears, you realize what has happened. Dynamite just exploded directly under your bed. But then you come to another realization. You only have a bump on your forehead.
After the dust settles, local police officers help dig you out of the rubble, apologizing to you as they do. You take to your feet, wade through the destruction, make sure your family is okay, and eventually step out onto your front porch. The neighborhood, among whom are your church members, gasp as they realize you made it out alive and virtually unscathed. How do you explain this miracle to them? For Fred Shuttlesworth, the pastor known as the “fire in the belly” of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the answer was easy. “The Lord is my light and salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread?” (Psalm 27:1, ESV).
Old Testament Promises and History Today
This is perhaps the most famous incident of Fred Shuttlesworth’s life of civil rights activism. Andrew Manus, one of Shuttlesworth’s biographers and a friend late in Shuttlesworth’s life, writes that “spiritually something irreversible happened to [Fred]” when his house was bombed. “In the milliseconds after the blast… He instantaneously ‘knew’ the divine meaning of the event… he told reporters that night that surviving the explosion strengthened his belief that God had called, even destined, him to be a leader in the civil rights movement.”
Manus dives deeper into Fred’s mindset in this moment. He writes, “In evangelical fashion, Shuttlesworth interpreted his survival and his religious experience in the midst of the blast as a divine miracle. Reflecting an indigenous black theology, Shuttlesworth interpreted the event as indicative of God’s providential work in history.” Putting it a different way, God was intervening in Fred’s life, and his church’s life, much in the way God intervened in Old Testament events. Fred would say about God’s provision, “Well, God just brought the Bible up to today. You don’t have to go back to Daniel in the lions’ den or the boys in the fiery furnace” to see God’s deliverance of His people.
When Shuttlesworth cited Psalm 27 then, he firmly believed this Psalm were words written by David and inspired by the Spirit come true in his own life. This Psalm, along with other stories of Old Testament protection and providence, fueled Fred’s fight for equal rights throughout his life. God was working, and Psalm 27 gave Fred, and the church he pastored, the courage to live out their faith amid intense opposition
Reflection for Today
The bombing of Fred Shuttlesworth’s house was not the climax of his civil rights activism. It was only the beginning. It clarified for him, and for his church, the role they were to play in fighting for the recognition of Black people’s dignity because they are made in the image of God, and he was able to lead them through this event by holding fast to the promises of God in the Psalms.
Shuttlesworth challenges us as we reflect on his fight for civil rights and his views of the Psalms.
Do we believe the promises of God found in the Psalms are meant for us as we fulfill our ministry as a body?
How are we living in these promises daily?
Are we encouraging one another to see and live in these promises daily?
May we find deeper trust in the Lord as we reflect on His promises and seek to live in light of them, Church.
Resources for Further Study
A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, by Andrew Manus.
Black and White: The Confrontation Between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene Bull Conner, by Larry Dane Brimner.
“KKK Bombs Home of Alabama Civil Rights Leader Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth,” Equal Justice Initiative’s A History of Racial Injustice Calendar, Dec. 25th entry. https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/dec/25.