[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 63 (Tuesday, March 31, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HONORING JOSEPH LOWERY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 31, 2020

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the 
life of a remarkable leader and civil rights activist, Mr. Joseph 
Lowery.
  Mr. Joseph Echols Lowery was born to Leroy and Dora Lowery on October 
6, 1921, in Huntsville, Alabama. At age 11, Lowery was abused by a 
white police officer for not stepping off the sidewalk as a white man 
passed by. From there, his parents sent him to Chicago, Illinois, to 
stay with family and attend junior high. He later returned to his 
hometown to complete his secondary education at William Hooper Council 
High School. Lowery attended Knoxville College, Alabama A&M College, 
and concluded at Paine College. He also attended ministerial training 
at Payne Theological Seminary and completed a Doctor of Divinity degree 
at the Chicago Ecumenical Institute.
  From 1952 to 1961, Lowery pastored Mobile's Warren Street Methodist 
Church. His Civil Rights career started in the early 1950's. He helped 
lead the Montgomery bus boycott--headed the Alabama Civic Affairs 
Association. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
along with Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and a few 
others--leading the organization as President from 1977 to 1997. Also, 
he was co-founder and President of the Black Leadership Forum. He 
served as the pastor of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta from 
1986 through 1992.
  In 1950, Lowery married Evelyn Gibson. They had three daughters 
together: Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery, and Cheryl Lowery-Osborne. He 
also had two sons from an earlier marriage with Agnes Moore: Joseph Jr. 
and LeRoy III.
  In 1965, Lowery participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery march. 
Atlanta's city government renamed Ashby Street to Joseph E. Lowery 
Boulevard which travels past Atlanta's prestigious Historically Black 
Colleges and Universities: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, 
Morehouse College, and Morris Brown College.
  As a member of the esteemed brotherhood of Alpha Phi Alpha 
Fraternity, Incorporated, Lowery received the NAACP Lifetime 
Achievement Award in 1997, the inaugural Walter P. Reuther Humanitarian 
Award from Wayne State University in 2003, the Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Center Peace Award, and the National Urban League's Whitney M. Young, 
Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Ebony named him one of the 15 
greatest black preachers. He received several honorary doctorates from 
colleges and universities, including Dillard University, Morehouse 
College, Alabama State University, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 
and Emory University. Lowery was honored at the International Civil 
Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic 
Site in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2004.
  On January 20, 2009, Lowery delivered the benediction at the 
inauguration of Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the 
United States of America. On July 30, 2009, he was awarded the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. He was also given the 
Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award by the Birmingham Civil Rights 
Institute.
  Joseph Lowery died on March 27, 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia, at 98 
years old.
  Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the late 
Mr. Joseph Echols Lowery for his passion and dedication to ministry and 
civil rights.

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