Joseph Lowery Biography
From Huntsville, Alabama, Joseph Lowery was an American minister in the United Methodist Church as well as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
Lowery was also the third president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The first two were Martin Luther King Jr. and his immediate successor, Ralph Abernathy.
Joseph Lowery Age
Lowery was born on October 6, 1921, in Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. He was 98 years old at the time of his death on 27 March 2020.
Joseph Lowery Family
Lowery was born to Leroy and Dora Lowery. There is no more information available about his family; his parents and siblings.
Joseph Lowery Wife
In the year 1950, Lowery married his wife Evelyn Gibson. Evelyn 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.
Evelyn was also a civil rights activist and leader. She created the Drum Major For Justice Award in 1980. The award is held annually near the April 4th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 2004, she was honored at the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Evelyn died on September 26, 2013.
Joseph Lowery Children
Lowery and his wife had three daughters and two sons together. Their names are Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery, Cheryl Lowery-Osborne, Leroy Lowery and Joesph Lowery Jr.
Joseph Lowery Education
Lowery attended middle school in Chicago but later returned to Huntsville, Alabama, to complete William Hooper Councill High School.
After high school, he went on and joined Knoxville College and Alabama A&M College and later he entered the Paine Theological Seminary to become a Methodist minister. Lowery would, later on, receive a Doctor of Divinity degree at the Chicago Ecumenical Institute.
Joseph Lowery Career
Lowery served as a pastor of the Warren Street Methodist Church, in Mobile, Alabama, from 1952 to 1961. In early 1950s, he began his career in the Civil Rights Movement in Mobile, Alabama.
Lowery helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks’ arrest in 1955. He also headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places.
Together with Martin Luther King Jr., he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. He also led the organization as its president from 1977 to 1997.
In 1959, Lowery’s property was seized along with that of other civil rights leaders by the State of Alabama. This was part of the settlement of a libel suit. However, The Supreme Court of the United States later ordered this court decision to be reversed.
Joseph Lowery Net Worth
Lowery’s net worth is not available.
Joseph Lowery Death
Lowery died on March 27, 2020, at the age of 95 years. His death was confirmed by family representative Imara Canady, who said he died of natural causes.