 | ODESSA WOOLFOLK |
The following biographical sketch was compiled at the time of induction into the Academy in 2008.
Odessa Woolfolk is an educator and civic activist.
Her leadership role in creating and sustaining the
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is
merely the best-known of many contributions
to her city and state. She
was one of the founders of Leadership
Birmingham and has served on
the boards of dozens of civic, community,
corporate, and public policy
organizations.
Born in the Titusville community
of Birmingham, she graduated from
the famed A. H. Parker High School,
then earned a BA in history and political
science at Talladega College
and an MA in urban studies at Occidental
College in California. She
has done additional graduate study
at the University of Chicago and was a National Urban
Fellow at Yale University.She began her career as a teacher at Birmingham’s Ullman
High School, and then moved into public policy work
with the Urban Reinvestment Task Force, Washington,
D.C.; New York State Urban Development Corporation,
New York City; YWCA, Utica, N.Y.; and Arbor Hill Community
Center and Inter-Racial Council, Albany, N.Y.
In the 1970s, she returned home to Alabama as executive
director of the Birmingham Opportunity Industrialization
Center and associate executive director of the Jefferson
County Committee for Economic Opportunity. For twenty-one years, she served the University of Alabama at
Birmingham as director of the Center for Urban Affairs;
lecturer in political science and public
affairs; staff associate, Center for
International Programs; and Assistant
to the President for Community
Relations. When she retired in 1993,
her service to UAB was recognized
with the establishment of the Odessa
Woolfolk Presidential Community
Service Award.
She has received the UAB Honorary
Alumni Award, Outstanding
Faculty Award, and President’s Medal,
to name only a few. She was honored
by the mayor and city council
with induction into the Birmingham
Gallery of Distinguished Citizens,
and she has received honorary doctorates from her alma
mater, Talladega College, from the University of the South
in Tennessee, and from Birmingham-Southern College.
Some 150,000 persons a year now honor her in a different
way as they pass through the Odessa Woolfolk Gallery
in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. She was the
driving force behind the building of that internationally
recognized museum depicting the struggles and victories
of the American civil rights movement.
She is a long-time member of Birmingham’s First Congregational
Church, which she has served as a trustee and
moderator.
Created October 20, 2008