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On Friday, November 14, 2008, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Board of Directors will honor retired pastor Joseph Ellwanger with the prestigious Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award during the Institute's Sixteenth Anniversary Dinner.
BCRI's Board of Directors selected Ellwanger as its honoree because of his outstanding legacy as a civil rights advocate. Ellwanger was one of the few white Southern ministers who supported the American Civil Rights Movement. He helped plan the Birmingham demonstrations in 1963. When the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed, Ellwanger was leading a service in his church a mile away. He spoke at the funeral of Denise McNair—daughter of Chris McNair and one of Ellwanger's parishioners—who was killed in the blast. Today, Ellwanger works for WISDOM, a network of nine congregation-based organizing groups that work for social justice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Rev. Ellwanger was President of The Birmingham Council on Human Relations, which provided behind-the-scenes support for civil rights work. On Saturday, March 6, 1965, Ellwanger organized a march in Selma, Alabama to support voting rights. He and 72 white Alabamans who openly supported voting rights marched to the courthouse steps in Selma, where they were confronted by hostile whites singing "Dixie." Ellwanger returned to march in Selma on "Turnaround Tuesday" (March 9, 1965) and again on March 25, the last day of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. Ellwanger was chosen by Dr. King, along with 14 other ministers, to meet with Governor George Wallace, following the march. He was part of a nation-wide delegation of 15 clergy that spoke with President Lyndon Johnson on March 12 about the necessity of the Voting Rights Act. Rev. Ellwanger and his wife Joyce currently reside in Milwaukee.
In addition to Rev. Ellwanger, the Institute will honor two Birmingham residents with the BCRI Sixteenth Anniversary Distinguished Service Awards. Those honorees are James Head, Sr. and the Rev. Abraham L. Woods, Jr. Head, a Birmingham resident since 1914, was a voice for progress during the city's days of racial conflict in the 1960s. He was active in the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now the National Conference for Community and Justice) and a major force behind the creation of Holy Family Hospital in Ensley. Head opened an office supply and library furniture business in 1926 and, over the years, supplied a major portion of Birmingham and Alabama library furniture. In civic affairs, he was chairman of United Way and active in the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce and the Birmingham Rotary Club. Head was the Young Men's Business Club Man of the Year in 1950 and 1960. Woods became a charter member of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) and served as the vice president alongside Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth. He served as the director for the Miles College Voter Registration Project and would later become President of the Birmingham Metropolitan Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In the summer of 1963, Rev. Woods worked for Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. as the deputy director for the Southeast and helped to mobilize the historic March on Washington. Woods would later recruit African Americans, especially those with prior military police experience to take the examination for the Birmingham Police Department. Now Immediate Past President of the Birmingham Chapter of SCLC, Woods is also a founding Board Member of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
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