The Atlanta Inquirer

James R. Wood
Joins SCLC

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - Today Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. announced the appointment of James R. Wood as his Administrative Assistant and Director of Public Relations for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Mr. Wood, a native of Washington, D. C., was educated in public schools there and in New York City, Hampton Institute and New York University.

He received training in the U. S. Marine Corps School of Organization and served as an organizer in the establishment of training centers for recruits during World War II. He also attended the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Organizer's Institute and later worked with the United Mine Workers (UMW) and United Automobile Workers (UAW) in the Detroit area. He has worked with the Democratic and Republican parties and the Vincent Impelliteri Independent Voting Machine as an organizer on the ward and district levels, as fund raiser for the Boy Scout Council of America, Red Cross, Council of Social Agencies and Catholic Charities in a volunteer capacity.

Mr. Wood is a student of the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi and embraces the philosophy of nonviolence as derived from passive resistance. He has taught Radio Production and Dramatic Arts at a Catholic Jesuit high school and served as director of the Date Processing Unit (IBM) on the administrative staff at Virginia State College.

As a member of the Executive Committee of the Petersburg, Va. Branch of the NAACP, Chairman of the Political Action Committee, Administrative Assistant to the President of the Petersburg Improvement Association, Chairman of the Political Action Committee, Editor of the Newsletter and Civil Rights Lecturer, Mr. Wood brings to SCLC a fertile background. His training and experience give him superior qualification for development of the broad, comprehensive program to be launched by the Conference. Dr. King stated further that the cultural breakthrough in the Negro Community in America demands new thinking and techniques in achieving human dignity and opening the road through equal opportunity to the pursuit of happiness which is so basic a part of our national heritage.

MR. JAMES R. WOOD