By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
(Source: Brimingham Times)
Bishop Calvin Woods Sr., distinguished Birmingham Civil Rights leader and longtime pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Norwood, died on Saturday. He was 91.
Mr. Woods was one of the city’s leading voices for equality for decades and one of the few area pastors to have worked and traveled with Civil Rights icon the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“My heart is heavy today,” his grandson, Rock City Church Pastor Mike McClure Jr., posted on social media. “My grandfather, Bishop Calvin Woods, has gone home to be with the Lord. He was more than family to me. He was a trailblazer, a freedom fighter, and a faithful servant of God who gave his life to the cause of justice and the Kingdom.”
Mr. Woods, who would have turned 92 on Sept. 13, was part of the fight for Civil Rights in Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s, even getting arrested and beaten for his efforts to desegregate buses in Birmingham. In his work, Mr. Woods also fought for voting rights and even participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.
McClure posted Saturday this his grandfather’s voice “carried the sound of courage in the Civil Rights Movement. His prayers lifted generations. His love for God and people left a mark that time cannot erase.”
Pastor Mike McClure Jr. interviews his grandfather Bishop Calvin Woods Sr., during a January 2022 interview at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. (File)
In January 2022 McClure spent more than an hour interviewing his grandfather for an article the appeared in The Birmingham Times. McClure described his grandfather during the interview as “one of my personal heroes, one of my homiletic heroes, one of my historic heroes.”
In the one-on-one McClure asked Mr. Woods “what one message” would he like to leave with the world?”
“Let’s keep on serving Jesus, looking to Him and that’s what we’ve got to do,” Mr. Woods replied, “We can’t let nothing get ahead of Him … you’ve got to use all your abilities and influence to get people to get on the right road and turn to Christ.”
Mr. Woods was born in Birmingham on Sept. 13, 1933, the son of Abraham and Maggie Rosa Lee Wallace Woods. He grew up in Birmingham and graduated from A.H. Parker High School in 1950. It was during his time at Parker that Mr. Woods developed his public speaking skills. Mr. Woods was the younger brother of Abraham Woods, another Civil Rights trailblazer. Together, the brothers, along with the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in 1956.
The Woods brothers met King and Ralph Abernathy in 1962 and began working with them to fight segregation in Birmingham. Through his work with the ACMHR and alongside other Black clergy like Shuttlesworth and Dr. King, Mr. Woods also participated in numerous other efforts to support the cause of Civil Rights in Birmingham.
He was arrested later in 1956 for pushing for boycotts of the Birmingham buses, which were segregated at the time. After the arrest, Mr. Woods was fined and sentenced to prison for six months. Years later, after continual involvement with the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham, he was again arrested, and this time, beaten for participating in a protest, in 1963.
Woods also joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and in 1965, protested how Birmingham handled voter registration. In 1966, he also served as the strategy chairman for a protest against the killing of Black protesters at a supermarket in the city.
Mr. Woods was pastor of East End Baptist Church in Southside from 1960 to 1974, before he moved to Shiloh Baptist Church. Mr. Woods became president of the SCLC Birmingham chapter in 2006 after his brother Abraham Jr. stepped down. In December 2021 Mr. Woods stepped down as president of the same chapter.
Mr. Woods had 13 children, 38 grandchildren, 68 great-grandchildren, and 12 great-great-grandchildren.
Asked by his grandson in The Birmingham Times interview, how he wanted to be remembered, Mr. Woods replied, “a servant of God, who loved God and loved people, anything else doesn’t matter.”
A public viewing will be held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, August 22 at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, 1101 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW, Birmingham AL 35211.
Celebration of Life service will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 23 at Sardis Baptist Church West, 1615 4th Court West, Birmingham AL 35208.