Joseph E. Lowery
| Joseph Lowery | |
|---|---|
Lowery, June 27, 2008
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| 3rd President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference | |
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In office 1977–1997 |
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| Preceded by | Ralph Abernathy |
| Succeeded by | Martin Luther King III |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Joseph Echols Lowery October 6, 1921 Huntsville, Alabama |
| Spouse(s) | Evelyn G. Lowery (m.?-2013) |
| Children | Leroy, Joseph Jr. Yvonne, Karen and Cheryl |
| 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 (born October 6, 1921) is an American minister in the United Methodist Church and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He later became the third president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, after Martin Luther King Jr. and his immediate successor, Ralph Abernathy, and participated in most of the major activities of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Joseph E. Lowery was born to Leroy and Dora Lowery on October 6, 1921. He attended middle school in Chicago while staying with relatives, but he returned to Huntsville, Alabama, to complete William Hooper Councill High School. He next attended the Knoxville College and Alabama A&M College, before finishing his Bachelor of Arts degree at Paine College, in Augusta, Georgia. Lowery next entered the Paine Theological Seminary to become a Methodist minister. Lowery is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Later on, he completed a doctorate of divinity degree at the Chicago Ecumenical Institute. He married Evelyn 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. They had three daughters: Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery, and Cheryl Lowery-Osborne.
Lowery was pastor of the Warren Street Methodist Church, in Mobile, Alabama, from 1952 until 1961. His career in the Civil Rights Movement began in the early 1950s in Mobile, Alabama. After Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955, he helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott. He headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places. In 1957, along with Martin Luther King Jr., Lowery founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and subsequently led the organization as its president from 1977 to 1997.
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