Lowery, 98, died Friday at dwelling in Atlanta, surrounded by members of the family, they stated in a press release. He died from pure causes unre
Lowery, 98, died Friday at dwelling in Atlanta, surrounded by members of the family, they stated in a press release.
He died from pure causes unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak, the assertion stated.
“Tonight, the nice Reverend Joseph E. Lowery transitioned from earth to eternity,” The King Middle in Atlanta remembered Lowery in a Friday night time tweet. “He was a champion for civil rights, a challenger of injustice, a pricey buddy to the King household.”
Lowery led the Southern Christian Management Convention for 20 years — restoring the group’s monetary stability and pressuring companies to not commerce with South Africa’s apartheid-era regime — earlier than retiring in 1997.
Thought of the dean of civil rights veterans, he lived to rejoice a November 2008 milestone that few of his motion colleagues thought they’d ever witness — the election of an African-American president.
At an emotional victory celebration for President-elect Barack Obama in Atlanta, Lowery stated, “America tonight is within the strategy of being born once more.”
An early and enthusiastic supporter of Obama over then-Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, Lowery additionally gave the benediction at Obama’s inauguration.
“We thanks for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to encourage our nation to consider that, sure, we will work collectively to realize a extra excellent union,” he stated.
In 2009, Obama awarded Lowery the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In one other high-profile second, Lowery drew a standing ovation on the 2006 funeral of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, when he criticized the battle in Iraq, saying, “For battle, billions extra, however no extra for the poor.” The remark additionally drew head shakes from then-President George Bush and his father, former president George H.W. Bush, who had been seated behind the pulpit.
Lowery’s involvement in civil rights grew naturally out of his Christian religion. He usually preached that racial discrimination in housing, employment and well being care was at odds with such basic Christian values as human value and the brotherhood of man.
“I’ve by no means felt your ministry ought to be completely devoted to creating a heavenly dwelling. I believed it must also be devoted to creating your private home right here heavenly,” he as soon as stated.
Lowery remained lively in combating points similar to battle, poverty and racism lengthy after retirement, and survived prostate most cancers and throat surgical procedure after he beat Jim Crow.
His spouse, Evelyn Gibson Lowery, who labored alongside her husband of almost 70 years and served as head of SCLC/WOMEN, died in 2013.
“I’ll miss you, Uncle Joe. You lastly made it as much as see Aunt Evelyn once more,” King’s daughter, Bernice King, stated in a tweet Friday night time.
Lowery was pastor of the Warren Avenue Methodist Church in Cell, Alabama, within the 1950s when he met King, who then lived in Montgomery, Alabama. Lowery’s conferences with King, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and different civil rights activists led to the SCLC’s formation in 1957. The group grew to become a number one power within the civil rights wrestle of the 1960s.
Lowery grew to become SCLC president in 1977 following the resignation of Abernathy, who had taken the job after King was assassinated in 1968. He took over an SCLC that was deeply in debt and dropping members quickly. Lowery helped the group survive and guided it on a brand new course that embraced extra mainstream social and financial insurance policies.
Coretta Scott King as soon as stated Lowery “has led extra marches and been within the trenches greater than anybody since Martin.”
He was arrested in 1983 in North Carolina for protesting the dumping of poisonous wastes in a predominantly black county and in 1984 in Washington whereas demonstrating towards apartheid.
He recalled a 1979 confrontation in Decatur, Alabama, when he and others had been protesting the case of a mentally disabled black man charged with rape. He recalled that bullets whizzed inches above their heads and a gaggle of Klan members confronted them.
“I might hear them go ‘whoosh,’” Lowery stated. “I’ll always remember that. I nearly died 24 miles from the place I used to be born.”
Within the mid-1980s, he led a boycott that persuaded the Winn-Dixie grocery chain to cease promoting South African canned fruit and frozen fish when that nation was within the grip of apartheid.
He additionally continued to induce blacks to train their hard-won rights by registering to vote.
“Black folks want to grasp that the suitable to vote was not a present of our political system however got here on account of blood, sweat and tears,” he stated in 1985.
Like King, Lowery juggled his civil rights work with ministry. He pastored United Methodist church buildings in Atlanta for many years and continued preaching lengthy after retiring.
Born in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1921, Joseph Echols Lowery grew up in a Methodist church the place his great-grandfather, the Rev. Howard Echols, was the primary black pastor. Lowery’s father, a grocery retailer proprietor, usually protested racism in the neighborhood.
After faculty, Lowery edited a newspaper and taught college in Birmingham, however the thought of changing into a minister “simply saved gnawing and gnawing at me,” he stated. After marrying Evelyn Gibson, a Methodist preacher’s daughter, he started his first pastorate in Birmingham in 1948.
In a 1998 interview, Lowery stated he was optimistic that true racial equality would someday be achieved.
“I consider within the closing triumph of righteousness,” he stated. “The Bible says weeping could endure for an evening, however pleasure cometh within the morning.”
A member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Lowery is survived by his three daughters, Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery and Cheryl Lowery.