Shelley's Story
Mattie C.'s Boy
Shelley Stewart was five years old when he and his brothers watched in horror as their father murdered their mother with an ax. Homeless at the age of six, Stewart found what shelter he could, suffering physical and sexual abuse and racism.
Despite heartbreaking setbacks and the racial strife that gripped the South in the 1950s and 1960s, Stewart graduated high school and entered the broadcasting profession. There he became a hugely popular radio personality, rubbing shoulders with the top recording artists of the day and becoming one of the nation’s first black radio station owners.
He helped Dr. Martin Luther King mount the historic Children’s March through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. Later Stewart would use his powerful communication skills to help convict one of the men who bombed the city’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Then this often-honored man turned his business skills to the creation of a foundation named after his mother; the Mattie C. Stewart Foundation works to convince high school students to stay in school and graduate, a topic Stewart speaks on in his many engagements around the country. Stewart, with author Don Keith, tells his story in his memoir Mattie C.'s Boy.
The Road South
As a five-year-old in Home-wood, Alabama, Shelley Stewart watched his father kill his mother with an axe. Two years later, Stewart escaped the care of abusive relatives, making a living as a stable hand. A stint in the army led to electroshock treatments for trying to integrate whites-only dances. But despite numerous setbacks, he never gave up his will to succeed. Eventually, odd jobs at radio stations laid the foundation for a 50-year career in broadcasting.
As an African-American radio personality, Stewart reached out to Jim Crow Alabama, using music to integrate his audience. Along the way, he helped launch the careers of such legends as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Gladys Knight. Instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, he publicized the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A remarkable witness to and participant in the momentous social changes of the last three decades, Stewart, now a successful businessman and community leader, shares his courageous personal story that shows the indomitable strength of the human spirit.
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