Joseph E. Lowery

By Sarah Quigley, Project Archivist, Southern Christian Leadership Conference records, MARBL

"Working for Freedom:  Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans.  The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

Following Emory's commencement ceremony on May 10, 2010, Reverend Joseph and Mrs. Evelyn Lowery visited MARBL to view the exhibit "One Who Disturbs the Comfortable and Comforts the Disturbed:  Joseph E. Lowery and SCLC."  The couple was accompanied by their three daughers, Yvonne, Karen and Cheryl, as well as two grandsons and several other family members.  The group appreciated the opportunity to see exhibit and learn about the work being on the SCLC records, and the visit was enjoyed by all.

By Sarah Quigley, Project Archivist, Southern Christian Leadership Conference records

In honor of Reverend Joseph Lowery receiving an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Emory University, the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library is pleased to announce an exhibit documenting Lowery’s career with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  “One Who Disturbs the Comfortable and Comforts the Disturbed”:  Joseph E. Lowery and the SCLC will feature photographs, letters and writings by Lowery that chronicle his 40 year involvement with the organization, both as Chairman of the Board of Directors and as President. 

By Sarah Quigley, Project Archivist, Southern Christian Leadership Conference records

Born in Alabama in 1921, Joseph Echols Lowery bore witness to the indignities of the Jim Crow south and grew up to become an influential leader of the Civil Rights Movement.  He was a young Methodist minister in Mobile, Alabama during the bus boycotts of the 1950s, and a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957.  He was active in the movement throughout the 1960s, marching alongside King from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.  He also was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the SCLC through much of the 1960s and 1970s.  In 1977, following the resignation of Ralph David Abernathy, Lowery assumed the presidency of SCLC, which he held until 1997.