Bishop Calvin Wallace Woods, Sr.

Bishop Calvin Wallace Woods, Sr.. Civil Rights Pioneer and Pastor. Civil rights activist and pastor, the Rev. Calvin Wallace Woods Sr. was born in Birmingham in 1933. The son of a Baptist preacher, Woods attended historic miles college and various seminary institutions. He distinguished himself as a leader during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s when he co-founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in 1956 along with his brother, the Rev. Abraham L. Woods Jr. and Rev. Fred L Shuttlesworth. The Woods brothers were introduced to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy in 1962 and work closely with them to organize protests against segregation and unfair treatment of blacks in Jefferson County. In 1963, Woods was beaten, arrested and convicted for advocating boycotts of Birmingham's segregated city bus system and for his participation in public protests. He was sentenced to prison for six months and fined, becoming the first member of his family to be arrested for participating in the Movement. , In 1963, Woods joined the March on Washington, which was one of the largest political rallies for jobs and human rights in the United States. In 1965, continuing his fight for justice, Woods protested Birmingham's voter registration procedures. One year later, he served as the strategy chairman for the protest of the shootings of 5 black demonstrators at a Birmingham supermarket. In 2006, at the age of 72, Woods succeeded his brother Abraham as president of the Birmingham Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC, and became president of the New Era Baptist State Convention a year later. In man of faith and conviction, Woods served as pastor of the East End Baptist Church at the young age of 27. Well into his 80s, he remained active as the minister of Birmingham's Shiloh Baptist Church and continued to champion the cause for human rights."