Joseph Lowery

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Joseph Echols Lowery, (born October 6, 1921, in Huntsville, Alabama) is a reverend and leader in the American civil rights movement.

Lowery was pastor of the Warren Street United Methodist Church, in Mobile, Alabama from 1952 until 1961. After Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955, Lowery helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1957, with Martin Luther King, Jr. Lowery founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and subsequently led the organization as its president from 1977 to 1997.

His property was seized in 1959 along with that of other civil rights leaders by the State of Alabama as part of a libel suit. The US Supreme Court ordered the suit reversed. At the request of Martin Luther King Jr., Lowery led the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. Lowery served as pastor of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta from (1986-92). He is now retired but remains active in the civil rights movement.

To honor Reverend Lowery, the City 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 Georgia Tech and stretching to White Street in the West End neighborhood. Perhaps not coincendently, the street intersects both Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and Ralph David Abernathy Freeway.

[edit] King funeral

In 2006, at Coretta Scott King's funeral, Dr. Lowery received a standing ovation when he remarked before four U.S. Presidents in attendance:

We know now there were no weapons 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 asserted his comments were inappropriate in a setting meant to honor the life of Mrs. King, especially considering Mr. Bush was present at the ceremony. (CNN, MSNBC) Others insisted that Rev. Lowery's statements reflected Mrs. King's lifelong commitment to ending unnecessary violence, which for her included the Iraq War. None of Mrs. King's family has objected to Lowery's words. (MLK Day 2004 Speech [1])