Joseph Echols Lowery (October 6, 1921 – March 27, 2020) was an American minister in the United Methodist Church and leader in the civil rights movement.

[3] He attended ministerial training at Payne Theological Seminary and later on, he completed a Doctor of Divinity degree at the Chicago Ecumenical Institute.

She was the sister of the late Harry Gibson, an activist, and elder member of the Northern Illinois conference of the United Methodist Church, Chicago area.

In 1957, along with Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and others, Lowery founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and subsequently led the organization as its president from 1977 to 1997.

[5][1] Lowery's car and other property, along with that of other civil rights leaders, was seized in 1959 by the State of Alabama to pay damages resulting from a libel suit.

The NAACP gave him their Lifetime Achievement Award at its 1997 convention calling him the "dean of the civil rights movement".

[15] He has also received the Martin Luther King Jr. Center Peace Award and the National Urban League's Whitney M. Young Jr.

In 2004, Lowery was honored at the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, located in Atlanta, Georgia.

[21] In 2006, at Coretta Scott King's funeral, Lowery received a standing ovation when he denounced the violence of war in Iraq compared to injustice for the poor, remarking before four U.S. presidents in attendance: We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there.

For war billions more but no more for the poor!Conservative observers said his comments were inappropriate in a setting meant to honor the life of Mrs. King, especially considering George W. Bush was present at the ceremony.

[22][23] On January 20, 2009, Lowery delivered the benediction at the inauguration of Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.

[24]A number of conservative pundits including Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and Michelle Malkin criticized this final passage, accusing it of being "divisive"[25] and "racialist".