Free Christmas Tales of Alabama by Kelly Kazek

The original group of nine, including Burnley, Roberts and Jefferson Davis, was joined by several more cadets. As drunkenness spread, the sounds of gunfire, breaking glass and threats against academy officials could be heard as cadets staggered through the halls, some armed with muskets and bayonets. At one point, Jefferson Davis ran ahead of patrolling officers and went to the barracks to warn the revelers. Unfortunately, the officers arrived and immediately put Davis under house arrest. Davis, though, was never punished, likely because he quickly complied with officers and retired to his room during the remaining shenanigans.
    Some of the group arrived at reveille still inebriated. It wasn’t long before the mischievous group was caught. Thayer told a group of officials that an inquiry would take place during final examination in January 1827. Twenty-two cadets were placed under house arrest in the meantime. During the two months’ wait, Burnley was arrested twice on other charges. After the inquiry, Burnley and Roberts were found guilty and expelled.
    Roberts, however, would go on to become a wealthy and prominent politician in Texas, where he moved in 1837. He eventually became the secretary of state in Texas.
    R EVEREND ’ S S URVIVAL OF B OMBING D EEMED C HRISTMAS M IRACLE
    December 25, 1956, had been another wonderful Christmas in the cozy parsonage. By evening, everyone was tired but happy. The only thing marring the holiday was the fact that Pat, who was thirteen years old, had been in the hospital since November recovering from burns she had suffered when her nightgown accidentally caught fire. The Shuttlesworth family had spent the afternoon in her room and learned that Pat was doing better and would be home before long.
    The other Shuttlesworth children—Ruby Fredericka, eleven; Fred Jr., ten; and Carolyn, seven—were at home, still full of Christmas dinner, too much hard candy and the spirit of the season. Ruby Fredericka, who was called “Ricky,” was watching television that evening, as her mother, Ruby, for whom she was named, talked with Naomi Robinson, the deacon’s wife, at the dining room table. Little Carolyn sat nearby.
    Fred Jr. was still wearing the red football uniform he had opened that morning, although it was now nearly ten o’clock and past bedtime. The Christmas tree sparkled in the living room. The children’s mother was known to leave the tree well past its lifespan because she so enjoyed the holiday.
    In a bedroom at the front of the small wood-frame house, the children’s father, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, had put on pajamas and lay across the bed, where he continued a discussion with Deacon Charlie Robinson, who sat near the bed.
    Into this domestic scene suddenly burst an explosion of wood, glass, flames and horrific noise.
    â€œAll of a sudden—BOOM! It was like a war zone,” Fred Jr. recalled in Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories . Then he realized: someone had tried to kill his family.
    Chaos ensued. Neighbors rushed to the parsonage, where the front bedroom had been demolished. Onlookers were filled with the terrible knowledge that surely Brother Fred had not survived. Then, as they watched, the pastor walked through the cloud of smoke and debris, unscathed.
    It was a Christmas miracle, indeed.
    Fred had no doubt that he had been spared for a reason. Now with his family unharmed by the white men who had set the dynamite bomb beneath his bedroom, he was more determined than ever to continue his nonviolent fight for civil rights.
    In the Shuttlesworth home, Christmas was about Christ. The home was next door to New Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, where Fred Shuttlesworth led the congregation. But the reverend also was a leader of his people. He had been involved in the fight for equal rights for black citizens and was the membership chairman of the local NAACP until the