Calvin O. Butts III was never one to be trifled with. As spiritual leader of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church for three decades, he used his pulpit and his voice to confront the white establishment, partnering with extremists and moderates alike to remake and revive Harlem, renewing historic neighborhoods and injecting life back into a community that had borne the scars of decades of racial conflict and neglect.
Butts, who died in October, raised over one billion dollars for Harlem, a part of New York City technically classified as a neighborhood, but more accurately described as a cultural center.
Taking over as pastor—from the colorful Adam Clayton Powell—of one of the largest and most influential black churches in America, Butts trailblazed a model for balancing the needs of spiritual life with the pragmatics of the bread-and-butter needs of his community. He helped revive Harlem with housing while lessening the sting of gentrification by reserving a portion of the community for existing residents. And he brought a supermarket, a high school and various commercial developments into the neighborhood.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who forged an alliance with Rev. Butts in the early 2000s, commented on his passing, “Reverend Butts took the idea of building the kingdom of God literally.”
“Reverend Butts worked more effectively than any other leader at the intersection of power, politics and faith in New York,” Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation and former chief operating officer of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, said. “He understood the role of faith in our lives, especially in the Black community.”
With his eye on community youth, Rev. Butts, with persuasion and insistence, convinced record labels and radio station executives to disallow rap lyrics that were misogynistic or incited violence. Billboards promoting alcohol and smoking did not last long in Butts’ Harlem—they were often summarily whitewashed.
Though tempted early on to follow a childhood dream of becoming mayor of New York City, the urge to plunge into politics was curtailed by church elders. As Butts explained not long ago, “Why? Because they said, the kinder ones, ‘You’re a young man and we love you. We want to see your ministry grow and develop.’” He then recalled them saying, referring to his predecessor, Adam Clayton Powell, “We’ve already seen one young man destroyed by politics.”
Rev. Butts therefore, while not plunging into the arena, yet was able to play the political game with whatever party was in power—at city, state and federal levels—to get what he needed for his people.
By so doing, as chairman of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, he siphoned some $1 billion into residential and commercial projects in Harlem; helped create the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, a public intermediate and high school in Harlem; and as president of the State University of New York College of Old Westbury on Long Island helped the school gain additional accreditation while establishing its first graduate programs and enlarging its campus.
Reverend Calvin O. Butts III stepped on toes here and there to get what he wanted for his people, but even those with whom his relationship was adversarial expressed their admiration. As Rev. Al Sharpton said, “While we did not always agree, we always came back together.”
There was no questioning of Butts’ motives even though some disputed his methods. Darren Walker in commenting on the minister’s spiritual emphasis, added, “but he also understood power and how to wield it and how to demand power from those who often sought to hoard it. And so he was a pragmatist, he was a realist, but he was also a dreamer.”
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