Mourners pay respects to Calvin O. Butts, former SUNY Old Westbury president

Mourners at Harlem’s landmark Abyssinian Baptist Church came from near and far Thursday for the wake of its longtime pastor, Calvin O. Butts III, who died Oct. 28 at age 73.

Everyday Harlemites who walked a few blocks. Long Islanders who commuted into the city. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Vice President Kamala Harris. The artist Sir Shadow, known for his drawings using just one continuous line.

Into the westernmost red doors of the Gothic- and Tudor-style building mourners went to pay respects to Butts, who also was SUNY Old Westbury’s college president for 21 years.

The wake continues Friday morning, followed by a funeral in the afternoon.

One by one, mourners stood before Butts, who was wearing gold-framed eyeglasses, a crimson-colored clerical robe and a matching necktie in a mahogany coffin placed below his longtime pulpit.

Michelle DiBenedetto, 75, of Deer Park, chairwoman of SUNY Old Westbury’s foundation for more than 20 years, said she first met Butts decades ago, when she worked for Citibank and Butts was doing economic development work in Harlem through the church’s not-for-profit corporation, which did over $1 billion in housing and commercial projects.

Joseph Garofalo, 64, a pastor of Huntington Baptist Church, who was also vice chairman of the foundation board, came with DiBenedetto and credited Butts as his inspiration.

“He was able to really split his time between pastoring at this church, Abyssinian Baptist, and his time as college president. In fact, he was an inspiration for me to go into the ministry, and that’s what I am now,” Garofalo said.

Abyssinian churchgoer Gyl-Maria Bartholomew, 54, a guidance counselor at nearby Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, which Butts built over 20 years ago, said she joined the church decades ago, even though she grew up Catholic.

“Harlem needed a leader. It was at the time that rap music was very derogatory against women. He actually made a public stand against rap music, crushing CDs in the streets, and I just thought that was incredible,” she said.

The Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist E.R. Shipp, 67, was outside the church recalling Butts’ impact, and how she would intellectually joust with him — the two didn’t agree on much — starting when she was a student at Columbia Law School and continuing through the years. “He started out more conservative in his theology than he ended up,” she said.

She described a sermon he gave at the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis.

“Like many Black churches, Abyssinian was a little slow off the mark in addressing AIDS, because it raised issues that they didn’t want to talk about — homosexuality, drug use, etc. But when Reverend Butts came ’round, he came around in a big way — and the church was all in," Shipp said. “He basically said, something like . . . 'Men who have relations with men, whatever you do, use a condom!’ And I think wigs of some of the ladies flew off, because they were in shock.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.