Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III was born in New York City, the son of a chef and city worker. In 1957, when he was 8, the Butts family moved from the Lillian Wald Houses on the Lower East Side to a mostly black section of Queens. For many summers, his family sent him south to visit relatives. His grandmothers, both devout Christians, lived in rural Georgia, and the young Calvin not only encountered Jim Crow segregation but also spent a lot of time in churches. "The most important people in my life were preachers," he once said.
Calvin was bussed to junior high school in Forest Hills at a time when white parents were protesting integration via busing, and he went on to attend the predominantly white Flushing High School in 1963, where he was eventually elected class president. At Morehouse College, where he majored in philosophy with a minor in religion, he found inspiration in the words and teachings of the theologian Howard Thurman; Morehouse president Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays; Howard University president Mordecai Wyatt Johnson; Malcolm X; Nat Turner; Denmark Vesey; Sojourner Truth; and of course, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Butts joined the Abyssinian Baptist Church as a junior minister in 1972. By the time he was named its Pastor, in 1989, he was already known for his civil rights accomplishments, having been a major catalyst for Congressional hearings on police brutality.
That same year, he established the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a non-profit community-based housing and commercial development organization. ADC went on to raise millions of dollars to develop a homeless shelter, a large apartment complex for senior citizens, and apartments for moderate income households. He remained outspoken with regard to civil rights, continuing to speak and organize around police brutality and economic injustice, whitewashing Harlem billboards that pitched tobacco and alcohol, and picketing the corporate headquarters of Philip Morris.
In 1999, Dr. Butts was appointed president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury. There he guided the campus to its largest enrollment in 15 years, added full-time faculty, won accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and created the College's first-ever graduate programs, which now number seven.
He continues as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church and was instrumental in establishing the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change – a public, state-of-the-art, intermediate and high school in Harlem – as well as the Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School, which opened in 2005.
A lifelong, iconic New Yorker, Dr. Butts is sought after nationally and internationally for his comments on educational, religious, social, and ethical issues. His activism continues: in April 2017 he publically criticized the visit to Long Island by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and was a prominent leader of the protest demonstration that took place outside the Central Islip courthouse where Sessions spoke.
We at ERASE Racism are proud and honored to host Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III at our 2017 Benefit and present him with this most fitting award.