The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the last giants of the civil rights movement, died Wednesday in a Birmingham, Ala., hospital. He was 89 years old.

Along with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. He braved beatings, bombings, multiple jailings and fire hoses to push the nation – and especially the city of Birmingham – toward racial equality.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis called Shuttlesworth “the last of a kind.”

By Shuttlesworth’s own account, he was bombed twice, beaten into unconsciousness and jailed more than 35 times.

“He was a fearless, determined, courageous leader for civil rights and social justice,” Lewis said on his congressional website. “When others did not have the courage to stand up, speak up and speak out, Fred Shuttlesworth put all he had on the line to end segregation in Birmingham and the state of Alabama. He was beaten with chains, his church was bombed, and he lived under constant threat of physical violence and murder.”

Shutlesworth moved to Cincinati in the early 1960s and there founded the Greater New Light Baptist Church. He served as pastor until his retirement in 2006.

Shuttlesworth had been in poor health for the past year and was hospitalized with breathing problems three weeks ago, according to the Associated Press. He died at Birmingham's Princeton Baptist Medical Center.

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