Joseph Lowery | |
|---|---|
 Lowery in 2000 | |
| 3rd President of theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference | |
| In office 1977–1997 | |
| Preceded by | Ralph Abernathy |
| Succeeded by | Martin Luther King III |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Joseph Echols Lowery (1921-10-06)October 6, 1921 Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | March 27, 2020(2020-03-27) (aged 98) Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 5 |
| Education | Paine College Payne Theological Seminary |
| Known for | Civil rights movement |
| Awards | Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009) |
| Affiliations | Georgia's Coalition for the People's Agenda; Alabama Civic Affairs Association; Black Leadership Forum; Lowery Institute |
Joseph Echols Lowery (October 6, 1921 – March 27, 2020) was an American minister in theUnited Methodist Church and leader in thecivil rights movement. He founded theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference withMartin Luther King Jr. and others, serving as its vice president, later chairman of the board, and its third president from 1977 to 1997. Lowery participated in most of the major activities of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued his civil rights work into the 21st century. He was called the "Dean of the Civil Rights Movement".[1] In 2009, Lowery received thePresidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. PresidentBarack Obama.[2]
Joseph E. Lowery was born to Leroy and Dora Lowery on October 6, 1921. His mother was a teacher and his father owned a small business inAlabama.[3] When he was 11, he was abused and punched by a white police officer for not getting off the sidewalk as a white man was passing. Lowery ran home to get a gun, but his father arrived and talked him out of it.[4] His family sent him away while he attended middle school inChicago, staying with relatives, but he returned toHuntsville, Alabama, to completeWilliam Hooper Councill High School.[5] He attendedKnoxville College andAlabama A&M College. Lowery graduated fromPaine College. He was a member ofAlpha Phi Alpha fraternity.[3]
He attended ministerial training atPayne Theological Seminary and later on, he completed aDoctor of Divinity degree at the Chicago Ecumenical Institute.[5] He marriedEvelyn Gibson in 1950, a civil rights activist and leader in her own right. She was the sister of the late Harry Gibson, an activist, and elder member of the Northern Illinois conference of the United Methodist Church, Chicago area. She died on September 26, 2013.[6] They had three daughters: Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery, and Cheryl Lowery-Osborne.[7] Lowery also had two sons, Joseph Jr. and LeRoy III, from an earlier marriage to Agnes Moore.[8]
Lowery was pastor of the Warren Street Methodist Church,[9] inMobile, Alabama, from 1952 to 1961. His career in the Civil Rights Movement took off in the early 1950s. AfterRosa Parks' arrest in 1955, he helped lead theMontgomery bus boycott. He headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places. In 1957, along withMartin Luther King Jr.,Fred Shuttlesworth, and others, Lowery founded theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference and subsequently led the organization as its president from 1977 to 1997.[5][1]
Lowery's car and other property, along with that of other civil rights leaders, was seized in 1959 by theState of Alabama to pay damages resulting from a libel suit. TheSupreme Court of the United States later reversed this decision inNew York Times Co. v. Sullivan. At the request of King, Lowery participated in theSelma to Montgomery march of 1965.[10]
He was a co-founder and president of the Black Leadership Forum, aconsortium ofblackadvocacy groups. This Forum protested the existence ofApartheid inSouth Africa from the mid-1970s through the end of white minority rule there. Lowery was among the first five black men to be arrested outside the South African Embassy inWashington, D.C., during the Free South Africa movement. He served as the pastor of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta from 1986 through 1992, adding over a thousand members and leaving the church with 10 acres (40,000 m2) of land.[4][11]
To honor him, the city government of Atlanta renamed Ashby Street for him. Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard is just west of downtown Atlanta and runs north-south beginning at West Marietta Street near the campus of theGeorgia Institute of Technology and stretching to White Street in the "West End" neighborhood, running past Atlanta'sHistorically Black Colleges and Universities:Clark Atlanta University,Spelman College,Morehouse College, andMorris Brown College.[4]
Lowery advocated forLGBT civil rights,[12] includingcivil unions and, in 2012,same-sex marriage.[13]
Lowery died on March 27, 2020, inAtlanta, Georgia.[14]
Lowery received several awards. TheNAACP gave him their Lifetime Achievement Award at its 1997 convention calling him the "dean of the civil rights movement". He received the inauguralWalter P. Reuther Humanitarian Award fromWayne State University in 2003.[15] He has also received theMartin Luther King Jr. Center Peace Award and theNational Urban League'sWhitney M. Young Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award, in 2004.[16]Ebony named him one of the 15 greatest black preachers, describing him as, "the consummate voice of biblical social relevancy, a focused voice, speaking truth to power."[17] Lowery also received several honorary doctorates from colleges and universities including,Dillard University,Morehouse College,Alabama State University,University of Alabama in Huntsville, andEmory University. In 2004, Lowery was honored at theInternational Civil Rights Walk of Fame at theMartin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, located inAtlanta, Georgia.[18]
Lowery was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom byBarack Obama, on July 30, 2009.[19] He was also given the Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award by theBirmingham Civil Rights Institute that year.[20]
Delta AirlinesBoeing 757-200 N6716C is named for Lowery.[21]
In 2006, atCoretta Scott King's funeral, Lowery received a standing ovation when he denounced the violence ofwar in Iraq compared to injustice for the poor, remarking before four U.S. presidents in attendance:
We know now there were noweapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor!
Conservative observers said his comments were inappropriate in a setting meant to honor the life of Mrs. King, especially consideringGeorge W. Bush was present at the ceremony.[22][23]
On January 20, 2009, Lowery delivered the benediction at the inauguration of SenatorBarack Obama as the 44th President of theUnited States of America. He opened with lines from "Lift Every Voice and Sing", also known as "The Negro National Anthem", byJames Weldon Johnson. He concluded with the following, an interpolation ofBig Bill Broonzy's "Black, Brown and White":
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get [in] back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen! Say Amen! And Amen![24]
A number of conservative pundits includingGlenn Beck,Michael Savage, andMichelle Malkin criticized this final passage, accusing it of being "divisive"[25] and "racialist".[26][27][28] Reporters in attendance called the passage a mocking of racial stereotypes, and said that the crowd received it with good humor.[29][30][31]
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