The charismatic Reverend Joseph Lowery, co-founder, with Martin Luther King, of the Conference of Southern Baptist Churches and veteran of the civil rights struggle in the United States, died on Friday March 27 at the age of 98. He 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.
Born in Huntsville, Alabama, he was chosen to deliver a blessing in 2009 during the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, who awarded him the highest presidential medal in the same year civil decoration of the United States.
"He spoke loudly, he spoke loudly and he never gave up. He protested all over America ", honored fellow wrestler and House of Representatives John Lewis in statement to newspaper The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"The Dean" of civil rights
The largest black American defense organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had dubbed the Reverend Lowery "The Dean" of civil rights, in recognition of his decades of anti-racial discrimination, which earned him several arrests.
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 fallacious grounds of eliminating " weapons of mass destruction ". "There were no weapons of mass destruction there, he had launched. But Coretta knew, and we knew there are weapons (against inequality) misused right here. Millions of people without health insurance, abounding poverty. "
