[1] He was active in Birmingham, Alabama during the Civil Rights movement, and was a leader within black educational institutions for many years.

While Pitts was attending college he became temporarily blind, obliging him to withdraw from school for three years.

[5] He helped in building the GTEA group into a powerful lobby for Black education in the state.

[7] Pitts was a member of the Central Committee 1963, a group of civil rights movement organizers that met at the A.G. Gaston Motel during the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Birmingham campaign.

[5] At Paine College, Pitts led an effort to rebuild Haygood Hall, a campus building from 1899 that had burned down in a 1968 fire.

[1] Before his death, Pitts had met with president Richard Nixon to discuss the role and importance of African American educational institutions.

[4] Pitts died of a stroke while working on February 25, 1974, in Augusta, Georgia,[8] and was buried on the Paine College campus next to the Gilbert-Lambuth Memorial Chapel.