I am not the best person to be covering this, but there are some lives to whose passing attention must be paid. The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Professor Derrick Bell were both, in their distinct and unique ways, true warriors for justice.
Diane Mcwhorter, in the NYTimes, eulogizes Rev. Shuttlesworth:
IF you recognized the name of only one of the two greats who succumbed to cancer on Wednesday, that’s perhaps because the work of the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who died at 89 in a hospital in Birmingham, Ala., was about as low-tech as it gets.
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Using an operating system of unadorned bodily witness, backed by a headlong courage that often tested the grace of his God, Mr. Shuttlesworth was the key architect of the civil rights revolution’s turning-point victory in Birmingham, the mass marches of 1963. Their internationally infamous climax, the showdown between the movement’s child demonstrators and the city of Birmingham’s fire hoses and police dogs, gave President John F. Kennedy the moral authority he needed to introduce legislation to abolish legal segregation, passed after his death as the Civil Rights Act of 1964…
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Among his movement colleagues, Mr. Shuttlesworth was known, with exasperation and admiration, as the Wild Man from Birmingham. He had been a lonely pioneer of nonviolent direct action in the 1950s, dispatching his followers to illegal seats in the front of Birmingham’s buses the day after the Ku Klux Klan bombed his bed out from under him on Christmas night in 1956. (“And this,” Mr. Shuttlesworth would later say, “is where I was blown into history.”)
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He became increasingly frustrated trying to prod King, with whom he and two other black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, to fulfill their organization’s pledge to “redeem the soul of America.” If King was Hamlet, not quite able to make up his mind and break away from the ceremonial demands of his role, Mr. Shuttlesworth sometimes resembled the Road Runner. “I literally tried to get myself killed,” he said. He was involved in more bodily attacks, arrests, jail sentences and Supreme Court test cases than any other member of the S.C.L.C….
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Also on Wednesday, we lost another dedicated fighter for justice in quite a different realm:
Derrick Bell, a legal scholar who saw persistent racism in America and sought to expose it through books, articles and provocative career moves — he gave up a Harvard Law School professorship to protest the school’s hiring practices — died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 80 and lived on the Upper West Side…
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Mr. Bell was the first tenured black professor at Harvard Law School and later the first black dean of a law school that was not historically black. But he was perhaps better known for resigning from prestigious jobs than for accepting them.
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While he was working at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in his 20s, his superiors told him to give up his membership in the N.A.A.C.P., believing it posed a conflict of interest. Instead he quit the department, ignoring the advice of friends to try to change it from within.
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Thirty years later, when he left Harvard Law School, he rejected similar advice. At the time, he said, his first wife, Jewel Hairston Bell, had asked him, “Why does it always have to be you?” The question trailed him afterward, he wrote in a 2002 memoir, “Ethical Ambition,” as did another posed by unsympathetic colleagues: “Who do you think you are?” …
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He was a pioneer of critical race theory — a body of legal scholarship that explored how racism is embedded in laws and legal institutions, even many of those intended to redress past injustices. His 1973 book, “Race, Racism and American Law,” became a staple in law schools and is now in its sixth edition.
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Mr. Bell “set the agenda in many ways for scholarship on race in the academy, not just the legal academy,” said Lani Guinier, the first black woman hired to join Harvard Law School’s tenured faculty, in an interview on Wednesday.
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At a rally while a student at Harvard Law, Barack Obama compared Professor Bell to the civil rights hero Rosa Parks…
More information about Professor Bell’s career here.
Brandon
Didn’t realize that Derek Bell had passed. He was a giant in academia and perhaps not as well known outside of it as peers like West or bell hooks. It is a bit disappointing that his eulogy is a bit glibly critical of his life and career. Perhaps his lack of mainstream name recognition comes from a prickly and uncompromising personality. But I think they really should have focused more on the positives, rather than portray him as an uppy martyr who thinks he’s better than everyone and sees racism lurking in every corner.
capt
We are losing too many of our good and best. I hope the next generation brings forward some great minds and heroes.
c u n d gulag
Decades from now, the KKKonservatives will be mourning these great patriot’s and men’s RepubliConfederate, RepubliKlan kkkounterparts:
Hans von Spakovsky
John Danforth
Alberto Gonzales
George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Strom Thurmond, among others, are already dead, and first time ballot inductee’s in their “KKKonsevative Hall of Fascist Fame!”
Keith G
@capt:
I haven’t seen any yet. The current crop seems too interested in compromise and comfort.
Warren Terra
Thanks for this. I’d like to think at least a little more attention would have been paid in the media to the passing of Fred Shuttlesworth if it hadn’t coincided with that of Steve Jobs.
David Koch
Nothing on the passing of Al Davis?!
I’m surprised considering the football crazed front pagers.
Davis brought so many innovations to football, but more importantly, he broke the color line by hiring the first Latino head coach in 1979 and the first Black head coach in 1989, and he broke the glass ceiling by hiring the first woman team president.
6 front page posts on the MacBook guy and zilch on an equal rights pioneer.
SiubhanDuinne
Many years ago, on some European trip, we had a tour guide who called our attention to a graveyard with the words “you can learn so much about the life of the people in a cemetery.” We all laughed at the incongruity of that statement, but I have to say I do feel that way about well-written obituaries, and on this side of the Pond, nobody does it better than the NYT. Occasionally they are little literary gems. And invariably I learn something new, whether I’ve previously heard of the deceased or not.
(Obvs I am not talking about wire service obits or unadorned death notices.)
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
There was a cool interview on NPR yesterday with someone who had written a bio of Davis. The guy said that his players loved him because he treated them like MEN, not wayward children. No curfews, no rules about much of anything except show up Sunday, on time, and play your best. The rest of your life is your own to do with what you will. Because you’re MEN.
PurpleGirl
I read Professor Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (Basic Books, 1992). It was not an easy read but it was well worth it. It continued a conversation I’ve had on and off with a close friend about racism and how my ideas about people formed from my own experiences. May he rest in peace.
Anne Laurie
@Brandon:
Was Professor Bell “prickly“? I’m sure Larry Summers thought so, and probably most of his other (ex)bosses as well. But the feminists whose writings introduced me to Bell loved him because he listened… even to people whose opinions he wasn’t professionally obligated to listen to… which is a rare trait among academics and probably not that common in the legal field, either.
Anya
It’s specially sad that Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth has passed away at a time when right wing efforts at voter suppression seems to be on the upswing.
SiubhanDuinne
There was another death a couple of days ago that moved me for reasons I will explain.
Roger Williams, pianist (“Autumn Leaves,” “Beyond the Sea,” etc.) died Saturday. He was 87.
I wasn’t a particular fan of his florid, arpeggiated style, although it has its place; but it so happens that he and Jimmy Carter shared a birthday — October 1, 1924. On their shared 80th (I think it was), Williams was invited to perform at The Carter Center.
I dread the day we hear that President Carter has died — may it be many years in the future. But Rogers Williams’ passing has brought that unwelcome thought to mind.
SiubhanDuinne
Cannot edit, FYWARPFWP, but those italics weren’t supposed to be there.
hilts
Anne Laurie,
Thanks for acknowledging the passing of these two important individuals.
http://www.theroot.com/views/tribute-derrick-bell
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/10/todays_love_reverend_fred_l_shuttlesworth_freedom_fighter.html
eemom
I was driving home Wednesday night and heard a very nice piece on NPR about Rev. Shuttlesworth. They played some old interviews, including one taken after he had been severely beaten by the Birmingham police thugs, where he said that God had given him an extra hard head because He knew he would need one living there.
They also played a clip of one of his last public appearances, either on election night 2008 or shortly thereafter, where he was introduced, to thunderous applause, as “the man whose work made this happen.” At that point he was too frail to address the crowd himself. I found it very moving.
Later on the same drive, they broke in with the news that Steve Jobs had died.
eemom
@Anya:
Then we must honor his memory by fighting back against those efforts.
Anya
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s a depressing thought.
slag
@Warren Terra:
That’s the thing. Steve Jobs was a talented and innovative entrepreneur. He wasn’t necessarily a force for good in the world (and I’m saying this as an Apple lover).
Our priorities are pretty messed up.
Elliecat
@eemom:
“Don’t mourn, organize!”
Anya
@eemom: I absolutely agree. I’ve recently attended a workshop on how to explore with people the reasons to vote, demonstrates how to register and how to vote.
Southern Beale
Holy shit. Just finished watching this 60 Minutes piece on Jeffrey Immelt. What a royal asshole. He says American corporations have zero patriotic duty to the people of the United States because, “I answer to investors,” but he also says he wants the American people to root for GE? I mean, what the fuck?
drkrick
@slag:
True, but in this case it probably has more to do with the difference between dying in your prime and dying years later. At least Rev. Shuttlesworth didn’t become a parody of himself the way Al Davis had over the last decade or so.
I’ve gone to a lot of sad funerals of people who had outlived most of their friends and family presided over by an officiant who had no idea who they really were.
MikeJ
@drkrick: So you’re saying Blondie were right?
Culture of Truth
I knew Professor Bell. It was fascinating to listen to him and while he had a great intellect he was also genuine and down to earth.
David Koch
Wow!
ABC evening news lead story was a sympathetic feature on OWS.
Also too, the Village is shocked (shocked, I tell ya) that Evangelicals think Mormons are a cult.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#44822993
jo6pac
@David Koch:
That what made the news.
I am not the best person to be covering this.
No problem if people want to know more about real American heros made of here they are.
honus
@David Koch: In fairness, with a Syrian Muslim immigrant father Jobs was the kind of anchor baby who would be deported today if the wingnuts had their way.
David Koch
OWS gaining sympathy in the MSM
Today’s paper:
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6508/owsnewsday.jpg
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
What an arrogant prick.
Triassic Sands
Huh? Who cares?
Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs!
In America packaging a bunch of electronic devices that people swoon over is much more important than fighting for justice. It’s a good sign of just how shallow and corrupt this country has become.
Corner Stone
@Southern Beale:
Then why is he a key adviser to this WH?
(another) Josh
Yeah, Stone, noted firebagger Jon Stewart has asked that question too.
gloryb
Professor Bell was also from Pittsburgh. He was a great friend of my mother’s, as was his first wife. He always delighted in pointing out that in high school, (yes, she was his high school sweetheart) SHE was considered the smart one. She went to Carnegie Mellon at 16. He always appreciated a smart woman. And he was as down to earth and good natured as they come.
Elie
@Anya:
Well noted…
But remembering him and what he did — how he did it — helps us fight and stand up. Not easy. Not immediately familiar to many — but true and real… He STOOD UP..
cokane
I’m from Cincinnati. I find it a little troubling Shuttlesworth’s later anti-gay rights campaigning is not spoken of at all. He deserves credit for his bravery in the 60s and 70s. But he also campaigned against repealing Article XII in Cincinnati, one of the most virulently anti-gay legislations in the country. Article XII denied homosexuals the kind of protections that people fought for in those decades.
Seems troubling that a man would stand up for the rights of his own group and against the rights of another. A good man overall but the whole story needs to be told.