The MLK Council of Elders
Rev. Joseph E. Lowery
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Joseph Lowery began his work with civil rights in the early 1950s in Mobile, Alabama, where he headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places. In 1957, Lowery and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Lowery was named vice president. In 1965, he was named chairman of the delegation to take demands of the Selma to Montgomery March to Alabama’s governor at the time, George Wallace.
Lowery is a co-founder and former president of the Black Leadership Forum, a consortium of black advocacy groups. The Forum began protesting apartheid in South Africa in the mid-1970s and continued until the election of Nelson Mandela. After becoming president of the SCLC in February of 1977, Lowery negotiated covenants with major corporations for employment advances, opportunities and business contracts with minority companies. He has led peace delegations to the Middle East and Central America. In addition to serving as pastor to several churches over the years, Lowery’s efforts to combat injustice and promote equal opportunities has led to the extension of provisions to the Voting Rights Act to 2007, the desegregation of public accommodations in Nashville, Tennessee and the hiring of Birmingham, Alabama’s first black police officers.
After serving his community for more than forty-five years, Lowery retired from the pulpit in 1997. He also retired in January of 1998 from the SCLC as president and CEO. Despite his retirement, Lowery still remains active. He works to encourage African Americans to vote, and recorded a rap with artist NATE the Great to help spread this message.
Lowery has received numerous awards, including an NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, the Martin Luther King Center Peace Award and the National Urban League’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Ebony has twice named him as one of the Fifteen Greatest Black Preachers.
Born on October 6, 1921 in Huntsville, Alabama, Lowery studied at Alabama A&M, Knoxville College, Payne Theological Seminary, and Chicago Ecumenical Institute. He received his doctorate of divinity and also several honorary doctorates from colleges and universities including, Dillard University, Morehouse College, Central State, Beloit University, Alabama State.
