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Ernie Suggs

Remembering the Rev. Joseph Lowery

Joseph Lowery was a Black minister of the United Methodist Church and a leading figure of the Civil Rights Movement.

The text below is taken from an article that commemorates this “Civil Rights Icon”.

In every man’s life, there is a day of destiny.

Joseph Echols Lowery’s came on a bright summer day in 1933, when he was only 11.

As he stepped out of his father’s candy store in Huntsville, Alabama, a white police officer

walked up.

5 “He hit me in the belly and said, ‘Get back, (N-word). Don’t you see a white man coming

in?’” the Rev. Lowery recalled in a 2001 Atlanta Journal-Constitution interview. “I went

home and looked for my father’s pearl-handled.32. I got it and was gonna look for that cop.”

But as he got to the porch, his father, LeRoy Lowery, appeared and asked why he was crying.

His father took the gun and gave him a lecture.

10 “I had never seen my father at home during the day, except on Sundays,” Lowery said.

“I don’t know why he came home that day. But I am glad he did.”

But for that, Lowery said, he probably would have been beaten, jailed or lynched that

afternoon.

Certainly his life would have been different. He probably would not have become one of

15 America’s most beloved preachers and human rights activists.

He would not have helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. found the Southern Christian

Leadership Conference, where he remained at the forefront of the civil rights movement for

more than half a century.

He would not have stood before a packed church at Coretta Scott King’s funeral and blasted

20 George W. Bush over the war in Iraq – as the president sat a few feet behind him.

And on a cold January day in 2009, he would not have delivered the benediction at the

inauguration of America’s first black president. Nor would that president, a few months

later, have pinned the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Lowery’s chest while tears – this

time of joy – streamed down the elder man’s face.

25 Lowery said that fateful day in 1933 was his introduction to civil rights.

“Although,” he added, “by being born black, I can’t ever remember not being in the movement.”

Coretta King once said Lowery had “led more marches and been in the trenches more than

anyone since Martin.”

Now Lowery, too, has led his last march.

30 Lowery died Friday night in his Atlanta home with his daughters at his side.

The civil rights icon was 98.

[...]

Lowery often said he was grateful to have lived so long, considering that King died at 39.

As a young man, he survived bombings and several attempts on his life, including a vicious

1979 Ku Klux Klan attack that nearly claimed the life of his wife, Evelyn. As an older man,

35 he beat back prostate cancer.

“I can’t [retire] because Martin is gone. Ralph [Abernathy] is gone. Hosea [Williams] is

gone,” he said at a roast marking his 85th birthday in 2006. “I’m still here. God kept me

here because I have been speaking the truth. Because I stand up against war and racism.”

When asked how he was doing, he would always say, “I am just an old man, doing young

40 things. I am tired, but happy.”

[...]

In 2008, Lowery capped his civil rights career by working on the Obama campaign as a

national co-chair for voter registration. After the election, President Obama picked Lowery

to deliver the benediction at his inauguration.

Lowery did not disappoint, mixing religion, spirituals and even the blues into a speech that

45 was equally celebrated and denounced.

In his emotional opening, he recited lines from James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice

and Sing,” also known as “The Negro National Anthem.” He ended by paraphrasing blues

legend Big Bill Broonzy’s “Black, Brown and White”.

“Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new

50 beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get

back; when brown can stick around; when yellow will be mellow; when the red man can

get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right,” Lowery prayed. “Let all those

who do justice and love mercy say Amen! Say Amen! And Amen!”

On later being admitted into Obama’s first class of Medal of Freedom recipients, Lowery

55 said he hoped the president would build the better America for which he and King had laid

the foundation.

“I get disgusted and mad with America sometimes, and I hear some fools talk about: ‘Go

back to Africa.’ I go to Africa every year, but the last thing I do before I get on the plane is

check the ticket to make sure it is round trip,” Lowery said. “I’m coming back. This is my

60 country. Africa may be the fatherland, but America is the mother. And I am going to hug

mama and squeeze her.”

Annotations:

7 ·.32 – a specific type of handgun

16 – 17 · Southern Christian Leadership Conference – an African American civil rights organization

19 · Coretta Scott King – M.L. King’s wife

36 · Ralph Abernathy – American civil rights activist and Baptist minister

36 · Hosea Williams – American civil rights leader, activist, businessman, scientist, politician

2. Analyze how Reverend Joseph Lowery is portrayed, concentrating on the communicative strategies and the language used. (Analysis) (16 Punkte)