Gospel concert to aid leader with Ohio bills

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Supporters have organized a gospel concert to help the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a civil rights pioneer, pay mounting medical bills in Ohio, his wife said on Saturday.

The Feb. 23 concert will feature longtime local gospel group The Delta Aires and others at an auditorium in Birmingham, Ala., where Shuttlesworth was a leader in the fight against racial segregation in the 1950s and worked with the late Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights cause.

Another concert, originally scheduled for Sunday at the Apollo Theater in New York, was canceled because too few tickets were sold, Sephira Shuttlesworth said.

The Rev. Shuttlesworth, 85, has lived in Cincinnati since 1961. After suffering a mild stroke in September, he was admitted to University Hospital in Cincinnati.

He stayed there for three weeks, then at a rehabilitation center until January when he was moved to a Cincinnati nursing home, Sephira Shuttlesworth said. His ability to speak has been hindered by the stroke and from medication, she said.

Monthly health care costs are now more than $6,000, she said. The family recently sent a letter to supporters asking for contributions.

Shuttlesworth also had a benign brain tumor removed in August 2005. He retired as pastor of the Greater New Light Baptist Church in 2006.