Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 11/01/2011 Gr 6 Up—The relative fame of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks tends to obscure other primary, important players in the Civil Rights Movement. One of these was the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a Baptist minister who served churches in Alabama from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Committed to his belief in the equality of all people before God, he was the driving force in bringing about the integration of Birmingham; and in this endeavor, he had help from a most unexpected source. Eugene "Bull" Connor was the Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety and strong proponent of the city's segregation ordinances. His enforcement techniques were legendary: dogs, fire hoses, brutality. Klan supported and driven by a set of beliefs as strong as, but counter to, Shuttlesworth's, Connor was in large part responsible for turning the tide of public opinion in favor of civil-rights progress. In this highly pictorial book, Brimner limns the characters of both men and the ways in which their belief systems and personalities interacted to eliminate segregation from the Birmingham statutes. Black-and-white pages and red sidebars containing supporting information on topics such as the murder of Emmet Till and Autherine Lucy's attempt to integrate the University of Alabama make this a visually arresting book. The writing style is lively and informative. A brief bibliography, excellent source notes, and a sound index round out this volume, which can stand alongside Russell Freedman's Freedom Walkers (Holiday House, 2006) and Brimner's own Birmingham Sunday (Calkins Creek, 2010) as fine examples of both civil-rights history and photo-biographies.—Ann Welton, Helen B. Stafford Elementary, Tacoma, WA - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 12/01/2011 The late Rev. Shuttlesworth, who spent much of his early ministerial career directly in the crosshairs of the KKK, has been overshadowed by the civil rights legacies of Dr. King and Mrs. Parks. But, as Brimner ably demonstrates here, Shuttlesworth was the driving force behind the movement in Birmingham at midcentury, and without his face-to-face showdowns with Public Safety Commissioner “Bull” Connor, the growing body of civil rights legislation might never have been enforced. The first two chapters of this title focus on the biography of each man-Shuttlesworth’s development of a religious philosophy that “made no distinction between a church member’s spiritual needs and that member’s social responsibilities”; Connor’s shift from a political progressive to an unwavering segregationist. The final section covers the strategies each man used to undermine his rival-fiery preaching, hosts of lawsuits, public demonstrations, and national media coverage versus harassment, Klan threats, and carefully orchestrated city-sanctioned violence. Plenty of black-and-white photographs are included, and the effective page layout balances oversized quotations and excerpts against columns of prose, underscoring the drama while assisting readers in scanning sections of text. A list of further reading (nicely selected for middle-school readers), source notes, and an index are appended. EB - Copyright 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Booklist - 10/15/2011 *Starred Review* Bombed, beaten, banned, and imprisoned, Reverend Fred. L. Shuttlesworth led the civil rights struggle for equality in Birmingham, Alabama, using nonviolent action to protest segregation in schools, stores, buses, and the hiring of police officers. He pressed his congregation to register to vote and to cast their ballots for civil rights supporters. Eugene “Bull” Connor, backed by the Ku Klux Klan, became a symbol of racist hatred and violence as he organized the southern segregationists to rally against Shuttlesworth. With a spacious design that includes archival pictures and primary source documents on almost every page, this accessible photo-essay recounts the events in three sections, which focus first on the preacher, then on the commissioner, and finally, on their confrontation. For readers new to the subject, the biographies will be a vivid, informative introduction, but even those who have some familiarity with the landmark events will learn much more here. Thorough source notes document the sometimes harrowing details and provide opportunities for further research, as does a list of suggested reading. Never simplistic in his depictions, Brimner shows the viewpoints from all sides: some middle-class blacks resented “Fred’s” heavy-handed style—fiery, confrontational, dictatorial—even if they agreed with the goals; some whites in Birmingham did wish to see an end to segregation, though their voices were drowned out. A penetrating look at elemental national history. - Copyright 2011 Booklist.

Loading...