Homewood Civil Rights Activist Dies At Age 100

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A longtime civil rights activist has died at the age of 100. Homewood resident Eileen Walbert died Feb. 16, and spent the majority of her life fighting for racial equality in Alabama.

A WBHM report paid tribute to Walbert's life and work, citing her tireless efforts as a white woman fighting for racial equality in the Birmingham area, including going door-to-door in the Rosedale neighborhood of Homewood to recruit Black students to integrate Shades Valley High School in the 1960s.

Walbert joined forces with civil rights icons such as Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Hosea Williams and even gathered a group of more than 70 other sympathetic white people to march in support of voting rights the day before Selma’s Bloody Sunday.

"She was not just a talker, she was a doer and she believed in action," said civil rights historian Horace Huntley in a WBHM interview. "In fact, Reverend Shuttlesworth called her a freedom fighter and basically that’s what she was."

Read and listen to the tribute to Walbert on wbhm.org.