Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award

The Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award is an annual award bestowed by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. It is named for Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth who led the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The award, which was established for the BCRI's 10th anniversary in 2002, is presented at the institute's annual anniversary dinner, held originally at the Sheraton Birmingham ballroom. In 2015 the ceremony was moved to the Alabama Theatre with singer Smokey Robinson on the program. It was moved to the newly-reopened Lyric Theatre in 2016.

In October 2018 the Institute announced that Angela Davis had been selected to receive that year's Human Rights Award and would deliver an address to the annual banquet in February 2019. In January the BCRI announced that it was withdrawing the planned honor and cancelling the event.

Honorees

• 2018: No award (Angela Davis was announced but later withdrawn)
• 2017: Richard Arrington
• 2016: Eleanor Holmes Norton
• 2015: Vernon Jordan
• 2014: C. T. Vivian
• 2013: Andrew Young
• 2012: Bryan Stevenson
• 2011: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
• 2010: James Clyburn
• 2009: Joseph Lowery
• 2008: Joseph Ellwanger
• 2007: Fred Gray
• 2006: Dorothy Cotton
• 2005: John Lewis
• 2004: John Hope Franklin
• 2003: Danny Glover
• 2002: Fred Shuttlesworth

References

• Gray, Jeremy (September 14, 2015) "Vernon Jordan to receive Shuttlesworth award; Smokey Robinson to perform at ceremony." The Birmingham News
• Roop, Lee (January 5, 2019) "Birmingham Civil Rights Institute cancels plan to honor Angela Davis." The Birmingham News

External link

• Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award at bcri.org