West Virginia University

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration

January 17, 7:00 pm, St. Paul AME Church

                             

Rev. Joseph Lowery

A life of outreach and advocacy

Lowery made his name early in the movement, in his home state of Alabama, where he was born in 1921 in Huntsville. After studying at Knoxville College, Payne College and Theological Seminary and the Chicago Ecumenical Institute, he returned home in the early 1950s to head the Alabama Civic Affairs Association in Mobile.

That organization was dedicated the desegregation of buses and public places throughout the South, and by 1957, he and Dr. Martin Luther King would link up to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which gave more muscle to the movement.

In 1965, it was Lowery who chaired the delegation that presented demands to then-Gov. George Wallace after the famed Selma to Montgomery March.

He didn?t lose heart after King?s assassination in 1968 ? in fact, he worked harder. He co-founded the Black Leader Forum in the early 1970s, and that consortium of black advocacy groups was among the first to actively protest apartheid in South Africa.

He led peace delegations to the Middle East and Central America. And here at home, his efforts helped add provisions to the Voting Rights Act ? and the first-ever black officers to the Birmingham, Ala., police department.

Today, his mission to get young black people to go to the polls on Election Day, and he even recorded a song with rap artist NATE the Great to reinforce the message.

Lowery holds an NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, the Martin Luther King Peace Award and the National Urban League?s Whitney M. Young Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award. Numerous colleges and universities have bestowed him with honorary degrees, including Dillard University, Morehouse College, Alabama State University and the University of Alabama. Ebony Magazine has twice named him to its ?Fifteen Greatest Black Preachers?

_____

WVU President’s Office
WVU Center for Black Culture
MLK Programs Committee
The City of Morgantown
WV NAACP
WVU Black Student Union
Community Coalition for Social Justice
Alpha Phi Alpha