Civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery passes away
Written by Site Hub on April 10, 2020
On the 52nd anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination (April 4, 1968), Rev. Lowery’s family gathered for his small, private graveside service at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta, GA. Lowery worked with King to start the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Lowery’s casket was carried in a horse-drawn caisson that was attended by men wearing top hats and black suits. The funeral procession stopped at two churches that Lowery had pastored and at the Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice and Human Rights, founded by Lowery in 2001.
Lowery received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in 1997. In 2009, at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, Lowery gave the benediction. Later that year, Obama honored Lowery with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is this country’s highest civilian honor.
Ordained as a Methodist minister in 1950, Lowery’s dedication to the civil rights movement earned him the nickname, “dean of the civil rights movement.” After King’s assassination, Lowery bravely continued to lead marches against racism in the racially charged South.
Lowery’s family noted that when he died at age 98, it was from causes unrelated to the coronavirus. On October 6th of this year, which would have been Lowery’s 99th birthday, a public memorial service is planned.
