Calvin O. Butts, III is the Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in the City of New York, President of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, and Chairman and founder of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, an engine for $500 million in housing and commercial development in Harlem.

Calvin Otis Butts III was born on July 19, 1949, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  When Calvin was young, the family moved to Queens, New York, where he attended public schools through high school. He graduated from Flushing High School where he was elected President of the Senior Class of 1967. 

Butts attended undergraduate college in the South, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. While a student at Morehouse, a historically black college (HBCU), Butts was initiated into the Pi Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

He returned to New York, where he earned a Master of Divinity Degree in Church History from Union Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Ministry in Church and Public Policy from Drew University in New Jersey.

Dr. Butts is one of a generation of highly educated, activist ministers in the Black church who have been active in civil rights, social justice and economic development in New York.