The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a pioneer of the civil rights movement in Birmingham who helped the city move past legal segregation, will be buried Monday in the city's oldest cemetery alongside many of the city founders.
Shuttlesworth did not specifically name the cemetery where he should be buried, said his widow, Sephira Shuttlesworth.
"He didn't go into any detail," she said. "He said he wanted to be buried in Birmingham."
Oak Hill Cemetery sits on a hill near the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex and at the start of Fred Shuttlesworth Boulevard, a street named for the civil rights leader.
"I thought it was very appropriate that he be buried in a place to be able to look out over the city," Sephira Shuttlesworth said.
It's also near Arthur Shores Park, named for another civil rights legend, an attorney who often represented Shuttlesworth as he challenged Birmingham's segregation laws.
Birmingham purchased 21.5 acres in 1871 to be used as a city cemetery. It was the only city cemetery for the first 15 years after the founding of Birmingham and was the final resting place for most of the city's founders and pioneer residents.
Shuttlesworth helped pioneer a new Birmingham free of the legalized racism embodied in Jim Crow laws, so it's appropriate he will be buried with the city's founders, Sephira Shuttlesworth said.
"He was a founder of another kind," she said.
Oak Hill Cemetery was open to burial of both blacks and whites from its founding and about an eighth of those buried in the cemetery are black, said Stuart Oates, director of Oak Hill.
Some of Birmingham's most prominent black citizens at the time of the city's founding are buried at Oak Hill, he said.
That includes the Rev. William R. Pettiford, an early pastor of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and founder of the Penny Savings Bank of Birmingham, the first black-owned bank in Alabama; Arthur H. Parker, an educator after whom the city's first black high school was named; and Bertram A. Hudson, an educator and banker after whom an elementary school was named.
Prominent white citizens laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery include Captain Charles Linn, founder of the First National Bank of Birmingham; Captain J.B. Webb, who opened Birmingham's first saloon and three-story hotel; and Madame Louise Wooster, who ran brothels in the 1800s and helped the city battle a cholera epidemic from March through October of 1873, Oates said.
"She turned her brothels into hospitals," he said.
Shuttlesworth's grave will be very close to the grave of Colonel James Sloss, the founder of Sloss Furnace, whose grave is marked by a 25-foot-tall obelisk, Oates said.
The majority of the 11,000 graves at Oak Hill are burials that took place before 1905, Oates said.
The reason is that Elmwood Cemetery, the city's largest, had become the most popular burial place, he said. The city even had a streetcar that ran to Elmwood for grave visitation and picnics at the vast cemetery more than 20 times larger than Oak Hill, Oates said.'Forgotten'
"Burials started to slow down here," Oates said. "It became a forgotten cemetery. People began to think of it as the pioneer cemetery. The majority of burials here were families connected with the pioneers."
But Oak Hill remained open, even adding some space and expanding to 22.3 acres.
"People don't realize there are still burials here," Oates said. "We have a pretty good choice of lots left."
There are two former Alabama governors buried at Oak Hill.
Frank Dixon, a Dixiecrat who was governor from 1939-43, was known for creating the Pardon and Parole Board and the alcoholic beverage control law that established state package stores to control liquor sales.
William Hugh Smith, who served as governor during Reconstruction from 1868 to 1870 is buried at Oak Hill. He was the first Republican governor in the state and had been an opponent of slavery and secession. He lost his 1870 re-election bid narrowly to Democrat Robert B. Lindsay, but claimed it was due to fraud and held onto office for three weeks after Lindsay's inauguration with help from U.S. troops.
Each year, Oak Hill puts on a fall history tour featuring actors portraying famous people buried at the cemetery. It will be held Oct. 29, from noon to 6 p.m., with tours every half hour.
It's too soon to include a dramatic tribute to Shuttlesworth, although he will be mentioned in one of the monologues by historical characters, Oates said.
"I'm hoping next year we can get someone to portray him," he said.Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email Garrison at firstname.lastname@example.org.