He led the Abyssinian Development Corporation, which focuses on Harlem, and was president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury.
[3][4] His father, Calvin Otis Butts II, worked as a cook and butcher; his mother, Eloise (Edwards), was employed as a supervisor for the New York City welfare department.
For decades its senior pastor, he also delivered a weekly sermon by radio on a local station, 98.7 FM (KISS-FM).
[3] During the late 1980s, Butts offered an early endorsement of the Harlem Week of Prayer, organized by Pernessa C. Seele, and helped mobilize the religious community to support programs for AIDS patients and their families.
The corporation is an arm of the church that undertook community projects, including the first high school constructed in Harlem in half a century, as well as several of the first national retail chain stores in the area.