MOTHER JOANN WATSON & DR. CALVIN O. BUTTS

DABO honors in this edition Rev. JoAnn Watson. Ms. Wastson was the first woman to serve as the executive director of the Detroit NAACP, and the only organization that dabo’s constitution requires us to support. She served as a Detroit City Council member for 10 years and served until 2013, was a former delegate to the 2001 United Nations World Conference on Racism, and assisted our CEO Rev. Horace L. Sheffield, III, and his family in developing his father’s archives now housed at the Reuther Library at Wayne State University. Rev. Sheffield said “When you think of those women who were fighters for freedom and fairness in Detroit the indomitable is among them. Her voice will be missed and her firm fierceness will be a force hard to replace.”

Dr. Calvin Otis Butts III (July 19, 1949 –October 28, 2022) was an American academic administrator and a senior pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, which historically was the largest black church in New York City. He led the Abyssinian Development Corporation, which focuses on Harlem, and was president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury.

Dr. Butts, who was also a mentor of Rev. Horace L. Sheffield, III, was also along with Rev. Sheffield, Debra Fraser Howze, Hon. Ralphael Warnock, and the Rev. Al Sharpton the National Co-Chairs of Choose Healthy Life that presently funds ten churches in Detroit.