Rev. Dr. Virgil Alexander Wood's Obituary
The life celebration service for Dr. Virgil A. Wood will be livestreamed on the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church website via the link below. The livestream will begin just before 11:00 AM. The website will indicate the next service will be on Sunday; however, the service for Dr. Wood will appear once the livestream begins. The livestream will not be on any of Wheeler's social media outlets.
https://wheelerbc.org/live-streaming
With momentary sadness and a profound sense of eternal joy, the Wood family; wife Lillian of 71 years, son David (Lorene), daughter Deborah, and grandsons Christopher (Stephanie) and Jordan - announce that our patriarch, Virgil Alexander Wood, transitioned to be with the Lord on December 28, 2024, at 2:01AM. He was 93 years old.
Dr. Virgil Wood was a church leader, educator, and a civil rights activist who committed his entire life’s work to the struggle for economic, social and spiritual development among this nation’s disadvantaged. Ordained as a Baptist Minister in his late teens, Dr. Wood served Churches for over 50 years in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia.
During his pastorate at Diamond Hill Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, he became actively involved in the Civil Rights movement, establishing Dr. Martin Luther King’s work there as the Lynchburg Improvement Association, which became a local unit of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
From 1963 to 1970, Dr. Wood led the Blue Hill Christian Center in Boston’s Roxbury community, as its Pastoral Director and head of the Massachusetts unit of SCLC. He served with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a member of his National Executive Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for the last ten years of Dr. King’s life and work, and Coordinated the State of Virginia in the historic March on Washington on August 28, 1963.
Dr. Wood is Pastor Emeritus of Pond Street Baptist Church, where he served from 1955 to 1958, and from 1983 to 2005. He concluded his pastoral ministry on December 31, 2005, having served Pond Street for 25 years marking his retirement from the pastorate full-time.
Dr. Wood is a 1956 graduate of Andover Newton Theological School with a Master of Divinity degree. Moreover, he received a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University in 1973, where he studied under and was mentored by Organization Development Expert Dr. Chris Argyris and Achievement Motivation Expert Dr. David McClellan. As an educator, he served as Dean and Director of the African American Institute at Northeastern University in Boston. Dr. Wood also served as a professor at Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg and as a visiting lecturer, researcher, and teaching Fellow at Harvard University. Dr. Wood was a Ridenour Fellow with the School of Public and International Affairs in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech and led the university’s Beloved Community Initiative.
Dr. Wood had many notable accomplishments. He was an administrator for Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, a job training organization serving disadvantaged and under-skilled individuals of all races, founded by friend and mentor, Dr. Leon H. Sullivan. He established 13 OIC centers in eight southern states and in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Wood also served as a panelist and member of three White House Conferences under the Johnson, Nixon, and Carter Administrations.
The Lord’s anointing was on Dr. Wood’s life from early childhood through his most significant challenges and accomplishments. These include the time his dad, Marion Jerome Wood, gave him responsibility at 7 years old for feeding the chickens on the family farm in what he described as “an early rite of passage”. Then later, he was selected, faithfully served, and became one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement along with his mentors, friends, and colleagues Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Leon Sullivan, Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Samuel Dewitt Proctor, Dr. C.T. Vivian, Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, and many others. Among Wood’s publications are INTRODUCTION TO BLACK CHURCH ECONOMIC STUDIES (Sparks Press: Raleigh, N. C., 1974), ORIGINATOR and contributing editor, THE JUBILEE BIBLE, (American Bible Society, New York,) 1999; and Author, “IN LOVE WE TRUST: Lessons I Learned From Martin Luther King”, published by Beckham House, Silver Spring, Maryland, February 2005.
He combined a dual career in Church Leadership and Education with a life-long commitment to community development as economic and spiritual transformation. A former member of the Economic Development Task Force of the National Conference of Black Mayors, he also served his national denomination as the first Chairman of its Economic Development Commission, the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
Dr. Wood was a fighter and deeply passionate to be wherever there was action. When it would have been easy to rest on his laurels, accomplishments, and achievements, he created action if it had not already existed. He was a force, creating ideas and moving them forward with passion, energy, and conviction. He was faithful to the vision of a beloved community in which we are all empowered, impassioned, and responsible to love and lift each other, especially loving and lifting those at the bottom. He fought and championed for “the least of these”, holding the community he called Church, Town, and Gown, accountable to make a difference.
What’s your fondest memory of Virgil?
What’s a lesson you learned from Virgil?
Share a story where Virgil's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Virgil you’ll never forget.
How did Virgil make you smile?