United States: Death of Reverend Joseph Lowery, tireless civil rights activist

Text by: RFI Follow

Joseph Lowery was one of Martin Luther King's closest allies in the organized civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s.

Publicity

The Reverend Joseph Lowery died on Friday March 27 at the age of 98. He was, with Martin Luther King, the co-founder of the Conference of Southern Baptist Churches and a veteran of the civil rights struggle in the United States

Joseph Lowery died peacefully at home, surrounded by his daughters, the Joseph & Evelyn Lowery Institute announced in a statement, welcoming his " rich legacy of service and struggle " for civil rights.

The largest black American defense organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), dubbed him " the dean " of civil rights, in recognition of his decades of fighting racial discrimination, which brought him resulted in several arrests.

Inauguration of Barack Obama

Joseph Lowery, born in Huntsville, Alabama (south), was chosen to pronounce a blessing in 2009 during the inauguration of Barack Obama, first black president of the United States, who awarded him the same year the "medal of Liberty ", the highest civil decoration in the country.

" He spoke loudly, he spoke loudly and he never gave up. He protested all over America, ”said his fellow worker and member of the House of Representatives John Lewis, in a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .

In 2006, at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, he publicly chaired President George W. Bush, in particular for having invaded Iraq in 2003 on the spurious motive of eliminating " weapons of mass destruction " . " There were no weapons of mass destruction there ," he said. But Coretta knew, and we knew that there are weapons (against inequality) misused here. Millions of people without health insurance, abounding poverty , "said the Reverend Lowery.

(With AFP)

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• United States

On the same subject

Coronavirus: Abandoned by Washington, New York has its own battle plan