Last month Birmingham native T. Marie King, in partnership with co-producer J. Whitson, and Alabama Public Television (APT) premiered “Shuttlesworth” at the historic Carver Theatre.

This documentary focuses on the life of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a Birmingham minister and prominent figure of the civil rights movement.

King described the public reception to her work as “overwhelming” and said Shuttlesworth is the first of many stories she aims to tell that will shed light on subjects that have long remained in shadow.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Have you always known that you wanted to be a documentarian or a film maker? When you were younger was this something you had interest in?

Yeah, that has always been the goal. I knew I wanted to make films and do storytelling probably since I was eight years old.

Was there a moment you remember thinking oh, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life?

Yeah, the first time I saw The Muppets Take Manhattan. I knew I wanted to do that. I didn’t know exactly what that was, but I knew I wanted to be a part of storytelling.

I wasn’t sure if that was are you in front of the screen? Are you behind it? But I knew that was what I wanted to do.

You know I did some acting growing up and I’m an 80s kid 90s teenager. So, we didn’t have the access to internet at your fingertips. I didn’t grow up with that. So, it made it a little bit more difficult to figure out different roles and things. But the beauty of the library was being able to research different things and see kind of oh this is what an actor does. But this is what a producer does. This is what a director does.

I’ve always kind of liked hearing people’s stories. So, I got more attracted to people’s stories being told in documentary form. So, as I got older that kind of became the piece of it I really like and enjoy.

Is “Shuttlesworth” your first documentary project or are there other things you’ve worked on?

This is my first project that I’ve produced. That I’m a coproducer on. That went out mainstream. I’ve worked on other projects for other folks for years. I did freelance videography in Atlanta for years. And then when I moved back to Birmingham is kind of when I fell into more community organizing and activism work.

What was the process like putting this documentary together from start to finish?

So, I was approached by APT to come onto the project on Shuttlesworth. My coproducer and I. The first thing that we did? When we were like okay this film it’s going to be on Shuttlesworth. We started just reading the biography about him. Because when we started, we didn’t know COVID was afoot.

So, we’re making all these plans and started reading this book and kind of see what surfaces from there. And then boom, COVID happened. So, we pretty much kind of spent the rest of the year kind of taking our time because we didn’t know what COVID was going to do.

So just kind of dissecting Andrew Manis’s book on Reverend Shuttlesworth. And from there it just kind of helped us put together a timeline on how we wanted to tackle the story. And thinking through okay who do we need to interview for this part and things of that nature.

So, the book kind of helped us put an outline together.

You mentioned COVID, would you say that was the biggest challenge in putting this documentary together or were there other things you had to work through?

The biggest challenge was probably COVID. Because even when things kind of started to open back up we were still dealing with maybe an interviewee getting sick with COVID. So, we would have to postpone or reschedule. Or maybe somebody on the film team getting sick with COVID.

I actually had some health challenges, not COVID-related, this year. So, I was in the hospital for a week. So, it was little things like that.

Then a lot of the people we were interviewing are much older. So, you’re dealing with people in their late 70s or early 80s. So, we wanted to be sensitive and make sure we weren’t brining germs or anything as serious as COVID around them. So, a lot of times it was delaying filming just being overly cautious and not wanting to harm anybody.

Do you have any favorite moments from the filming process?

Definitely getting the opportunity to get to know Reverend Shuttlesworth’s children. It was great to get to know them and get to see him from their vantage point. Because you know they see him as daddy. And we are seeing him as this iconic figure who did this amazing work in Birmingham that impacted not only the civil rights movement but also other communities.

So being able to see family pictures. And seeing those with a grin or a smile or playing with his grandkids. Those were definitely cool to me.

Also hearing little nuanced stories that you normally don’t get when you’re hearing about historic events. So, getting to kind of peel back that curtain. And it’s like oh that was going on. That happened. I’ve never heard that before.

You know I’ve heard for the Children’s Crusade the radio disc jockeys were used to send out signals to the students to let them know, “Hey we’re marching today.” So just talking to Shelley Stewart, known as Shelley “The Playboy” many years ago, and just hearing his account of the Children’s Crusade.

They’re telling them [the students] get your toothbrush. And the toothbrush meant you might go to jail today.

So those little nuanced things that the average person today would not know. Those were the things that I enjoyed being able to learn about.

What made you want to work on a documentary about Shuttlesworth with APT?

Growing up in Birmingham I’ve always been aware of his role in Birmingham. I knew it was major. But you know we don’t teach the things we need to in school. Even when I was in school people weren’t necessarily teaching all of the history.

But for me knowing his role was pivotal, it was almost an immediate yes. Without knowing what the project was going to actually entail. It was just Shuttlesworth? Absolutely. I want to be a part of it. And then it was kind of like, okay now what do y’all want me to do on it?

I just wanted to be a part of amplifying somebody who I think a lot of times is looked over. So, I wanted to play a piece of being somebody that brought his story back to the masses.

Were there any anecdotes about Shuttlesworth that you heard during the process that stuck out to you?

One thing that really stuck out to me was my coproducer Jay and I went to the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. And everybody in the room, even though it was about the Freedom Riders, talked about his role in kind of being that person they could call.

They knew leaving the places they’re coming from, riding the busses, and coming through Birmingham. They were already encouraged if they ran into any trouble Fred Shuttlesworth was the person to call. And just hearing “This is the most courageous man I’ve ever met. I’ve never met a braver man.” And just to hear that consistently about somebody was just like, okay, this guy had a major impact.

For these young people during this tumultuous time trying to integrate the bus system to feel like okay I can go on because this person continued to walk the walk.

Also learning after his house was bombed on Christmas that he didn’t come out of the house, that now is mangled from the bomb, until he could find the proper clothes to put on. Because he didn’t want to go outside and not be decent.

And I’m sure we would’ve given him a pass because you’re home has just been bombed and you’re in there. But he was conscious of “I don’t want to present myself that way even if my house was just bombed.”

So it’s things like that where you see the layers pile on of who a person actually is that were kind of cool to find out about him.

As a leader in your own community and as someone with a master’s degree in leadership and divinity did you feel a closeness to Shuttlesworth while making this documentary?

Definitely. I think we’re fascinated with leaders. But we don’t a lot of times understand the way a leader has to walk things out.

A leader has to make hard choices and hard decisions and say “No we’re going to do this.” And I think understanding what I know about leadership I think he definitely walked that out. Because it’s not always popular to be the leader. And I think he made some choices and maybe led the Birmingham movement in a way other people may not have wanted to lead it. Maybe people didn’t agree with the way he was leading it. But he knew this is what’s best.

I also think your faith in God keeps you during a time like that. It’s not easy, I think, to lead today. And I think it was one hundred times harder during the civil rights movement to lead. And then to lead in a city as tough and as segregated as Birmingham, Alabama.

And for him to walk that out in the way that he did. In that strong matter. In that courageous manner. Not only holding up the community but pushing back against the establishment. And saying “No, this is what the law is saying. I’m holding you accountable to that and we’re going to do that in this manner.”

So, I think for me it was kind of confirmation I guess in some ways that it may not be popular. People may not necessarily like it. But you still can be doing the right thing.

In your professional day to day, I read that you also hold a position with Jones Valley Teaching Farm, and you tour and give speeches. So how did you balance all these responsibilities while also making a documentary?

Yeah, I do entirely too much. Part of me coming on board at Jones Valley required also needing the space to work on the other things I had going on. So, my executive director [Amanda Storey] is very supportive of the community work that I do. So, a lot of things [at Jones Valley] like tours and such are usually done on the weekends and scheduled in advance.

For me making the documentary was a priority the past couple of years. So, shooting days and all that was scheduled early. So, I just planned to be off for things of that nature. But they were the best at working with me on the times I needed to step away to finish out this project.

Amanda’s the best, she was at the premiere night. She came and some others from Jones Valley showed up as well.

Speaking of the premiere, what has the reaction been to the release? Has anything surprised you?

It’s been a little overwhelming, but in a good way.

I was more concerned with the family liking it to be completely honest. Because this is their relative. This is their father. Their grandfather. Their husband. So, there was a sense of “I hope they like it.” If they don’t like it, what do you when the family doesn’t like it and it’s out there?

So, they really loved it and told us how much they really appreciated how we told the story and showed their father. So, once we got over that hump hearing from the community of how much they learned has been very overwhelming. I’ve been getting Facebook messages. People texted and emailed just saying “I had no idea. I knew the name, but I didn’t know that was the person behind the name.”

People saying, “I didn’t know about the industrial period of Birmingham or that this happened.” Just the things that people are saying they’re learning from watching the film has been amazing to hear. It also reminds us of how much work we have to do when it comes to how we tell our stories and making sure young people are educated.

I’ve met a lot of students who have seen the film. Whether they’ve watched it with their parents or whatever. They think the movement was so long ago. And not realizing next year’s the 60th anniversary of the Children’s Crusade and the bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church. The Letter from Birmingham Jail. The March on Washington. The 60th anniversary of all of that is next year.

So, people thinking oh that was just so long ago and realizing it’s not that very long ago. So, I hope that it helps people dig deeper into not only our communal story here in Birmingham. But also, the overall story of the civil rights movements. And those leaders like Reverend Shuttlesworth who did the work that allows us to interact in the ways that we get to interact today. Even though we still have much more work to do they paved the way for that.

It’s been overwhelming. It’s been heartwarming. It feels good to have a major project out there and people like it. So that’s been a blessing.

I know you just completed this big project so no one would blame you if you’re not planning anything right now. But if you do have any future plans, what do those look like?

Well, I’m sure that we’ll be busy next year with the 60th anniversary. We’re already getting requests to show the documentary in different places.

We might submit it to a few film festivals as well.

So, I imagine we’ll definitely be busy with Shuttlesworth. But personally, I also program for Sidewalk Film Festival. I’m the lead shorts programmer and I program for the Black Lens track of films. So right now, I’m preparing for Black Lens film week in February and gearing up to prepare for the festival in August of next year.

But I’ve also got a couple of shorts that I plan on filming the first quarter of the year that I’ve been meaning to work on for a while. But the film kind of took precedent over them.

But that’s kind of what I’m looking at. Just continuing the storytelling. That’s the area that I love. That I’m passionate about. So, I’m leaning more into that. Hopefully the plan is for people to see more from that side of me in the future.

With all you have going on, what made you decide to also produce the Hello Lights podcast?

My goal was really to just be able to do storytelling in a different form. I wanted to introduce people who I knew who were doing cool or impactful things in the community who may help somebody else.

People like Salaam Green who has a powerful story. A friend of mine Shaun Leavell and his story of the things in his life. The poor choices he made but how he got himself to a good place.

I think a lot of times you have people who are going through things. I think sometimes we get isolated because we don’t know how to talk to people about what we’re experiencing.

We see the posts all the time that talk about check in on your strong friends. Because usually if you’re the strong friend sometimes you feel like who can I talk to?

Or you’re the encouraging friend that’s always encouraging everybody else. Well, what does it look like for you to now need that encouragement?

And I think it’s human. We all need that encouragement. We all need that assurance.

And I just wanted to help others by bringing people to the table to say “Look I’ve been there. I’ve dealt with these hard things, and this is how I got over. And you can get over it as well.”

So that was kind of my role. That’s kind of how I see Hello Lights. As an opportunity to help illuminate opportunities for individual growth. Illuminate opportunities for how to walk through the storms a person may be experiencing in life.

Then hopefully we can have a little fun and laugh about certain things as we go through it as well.

So that was my intention with Hello Lights. And that’s what I plan to continue to do with the next season of it which we’ll be recording in January.

As someone who grew up in Birmingham and has achieved so much, what would your advice be to young people in the city who want to make documentaries or become activists?

I would say just start. I think a lot of times we’re waiting for somebody to open the door for us. To invite us in.

The cool thing about young people today in this time is that social media and the internet has really leveled the playing field. So, you can really just create your own content and start your own YouTube channel. Or create your own website and put your content out there. Submit it to festivals.

I would also encourage them to study your craft. I think it’s good to have an idea and think oh I can just take my phone out and film some things and put it out there. And you can. I think it’s also good to actually understand the art of filmmaking and storytelling. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go to college for it but taking the time to study, learn, ask questions, and talk to people who are in the industry.

I think it’s important to know the field that you’re interested in like you know the back of your hand.

When it comes to activism, I think it’s the same thing. Understanding your community. Understanding the issues that are important to you that you want addressed so that you can help educate other people. And help them understand how their voices matter and can also impact change in your community. And that’s something you can just start.

I would just invite folks into my home. Like hey I want you to come meet this person who is addressing this issue that is important to all of us.

Whatever it is you’re interested in. Whether you want to tell stories or advocate for people whose voices are not strong enough to advocate for themselves. Just start. Educate yourself and get out there and do it.

To watch “Shuttlesworth” online, visit the PBS website here.

This article was updated on Jan. 17 2023 at 12:51 p.m. to add “with” to the opening sentence.