Birmingham, AL – Longtime civil rights leader and Birmingham civic activist Abraham Woods died Friday after a long illness. He was 80.
Woods served as longtime president of the Birmingham chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He often led community marches in Birmingham to protest police shootings, slumlords and neighborhood violence.
Woods helped coordinate the March on Washington. He stood behind civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C., in 1963, looking out over a crowd of 250,000 as King gave his famous ``I Have a Dream'' speech.
He had been pastor of St. Joseph Baptist Church since 1967.
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