In 1940, he recalled he and his brother were walking from the Rosedale community, near the Howard College campus, when a group of white boys began mocking them and throwing rocks at them. He and his brother fought back. Almost 70 years later, he was an honored guest at a place that once excluded Black students. “Listening to Andy speak that day, something about him appeared different to me,” he said.
Not long after the inauguration, Stewart was invited to a meeting on campus, which just so happened to be in the president’s office. “Before long, Andy said, ‘I’ve heard of you, I know about your background.’ Then, for whatever reason, he came and sat next to me and we began talking openly and candidly,” Stewart said. “I told Andy, 'Samford could do well for this community. We have to take that fence down from around it.' He said, ‘I’ve heard that, and I feel that; can we work together?’”
From there, Stewart said, it was like they had known each other all their lives. Their friendship inspired the 2008 creation of Birmingham Kitchen Table, a program that brings together diverse individuals throughout Birmingham to discuss community-focused issues. “We didn’t sit down in a meeting and a bunch of committees and put a plan together,” he said. “We just did it.”
A few years later, Stewart became very ill. “I had been in the hospital about two weeks, and I woke up one day and there was a man on his knees beside my bed praying,” he said. “I turned over to see who it was and there was Andy Westmoreland. That’s the president of Samford University.” After Stewart recovered—and as their friendship continued to grow—the two were reunited at one of their Birmingham Kitchen Table meetings. “We were on opposite sides of the room,” Stewart said, “And he looked across the room and said, ‘I love you Shelley,’ and I said, ‘I love you too Andy.”
That same year, Westmoreland honored Stewart as an honorary member of the class of 2013 and, along with Jeanna Westmoreland, established the Shelley Stewart Scholarship Fund in an effort to achieve greater racial diversity on campus.
As Samford continues its work toward racial reconciliation and to increase diversity, equity and inclusion across campus, the university has been strongly influenced by this model of personal, spiritual and historical connection embodied in the friendship between Westmoreland and Stewart. “We brought people together,” Stewart said. “And, although he is retiring, we will continue to try to bring people together.”
