Murder Attempts
When Shuttlesworth and his wife Ruby attempted to enroll their children in a previously all-white public school in Birmingham in 1957, a mob of Klansmen attacked them, with the police nowhere to be seen. His assailants included Bobby Frank Cherry,who had been involved in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. The mob beat him with chains and brass knuckles in the street while someone stabbed his wife. Shuttlesworth drove himself and his wife to the hospital where he told his kids to always forgive.
In 1958 Shuttlesworth survived another attempt on his life. A church member standing guard saw a bomb and quickly moved it to the street before it went off.
Read more about this topic: Fred Shuttlesworth
Famous quotes containing the words murder and/or attempts:
“You who led me by the nose,
I saw you as you were.
Then I thought of your body
as one thinks of murder . . .”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)