The Rev. Virgil Wood, a Charlottesville native, Lynchburg civil rights activist and one of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last living "lieutenants," died on Dec. 28. He was 93.
Ordained as a Baptist minister in his late teens, Wood served as pastor at Diamond Hill Baptist Church in Lynchburg from 1958 to 1963.
In 1960, Wood headed a special committee of the NAACP that recommended stores in Lynchburg that refused to give lunch counter service to Black customers should be subjected to picketing and boycotts.
Wood helped to coordinate King’s visit to Lynchburg on March 27, 1962, as part of King’s People-to-People Tour aimed at increasing voter registration among Black Americans. During his visit to Lynchburg, King participated in a rally at E.C. Glass High School.
"Rev. Wood was not only a soldier in the fight for civil rights, but he was also an admired pastor and church leader, author, and educator," the Lynchburg Chapter of the NAACP said in a statement Friday. "His legacy impacted generations and will continue for years to come."
Born in Charlottesville on April 16, 1931, Wood obtained a bachelor’s degree in history from Virginia Union University in Richmond in 1952, and in 1956, he graduated with a Master of Divinity degree from Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts. He earned a doctorate in education from Harvard University in 1973.
Along with his time at Diamond Hill Baptist Church, Wood served as a church leader in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. After half a century of service to the church, Wood moved to the Houston area in 2005, where he remained until his death.
At a Unity In Our Community event at the Providence Transformation Church International in Lynchburg on Wednesday, the Rev. James Coleman honored Wood, describing him as an “iconic member” of Lynchburg for many years.
In his community work, Wood established “the tenets of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s work with the Lynchburg Improvement Association, which became a local unit of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” Coleman recalled.
At Wednesday’s event, Wood’s son, David Wood, who was on a speaker phone, said his father held Lynchburg “deeply in his heart.”
“He loved Lynchburg,” David Wood said. “I know my dad would say that Lynchburg was really the place it all began in the civil rights ministry, and he just loved Lynchburg so very dearly.”
In interviews over the years, Owen Cardwell Jr., one of the first two Black students to attend E.C. Glass High School in 1962, named the elder Wood as one of the three people who had the greatest influence on him. The other two were his father Owen Cardwell Sr. and Bishop Alfred Kee Sr.
Virgil Wood and Cardwell remained close over the decades, partnering on educational and community projects.
In March 1960, the special committee of the NAACP that Virgil Wood headed sent a request to the F. W. Woolworth store in Lynchburg, calling for full lunch counter service to all customers regardless of race.
Picketing of the store continued until June 1961, when the Lynchburg Ministerial Association and the NAACP endorsed the Lynchburg Interracial Commission, which was set up by the mayor after sit-down demonstrations had brought business to a standstill.
Virgil Wood also headed the Lynchburg Improvement Association, a group that picketed against job discrimination in downtown stores. During this period, his car was vandalized and rocks were thrown through the windows of his house.
"The members of the Lynchburg Chapter of the NAACP, Unit 7088, owe a great debt of gratitude to him and we offer our condolences to the family," the local NAACP chapter.
Wood is survived by his wife of 71 years Lillian, daughter Deborah, son David, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com