Civil rights leader, MLK aide Joseph Lowery dies

Reverend Joseph E Lowery, a veteran civil rights leader who helped Martin Luther King Jr found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and fought against racial discrimination, died Friday.

He was 98.

For more than four decades after the death of his friend and civil rights icon, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the fiery Alabama preacher was on the front line of the battle for equality, with an unforgettable delivery that rivaled King’s - and was often more unpredictable.

Lowery had a knack for cutting to the core of the country’s conscience with commentary steeped in scripture, refusing to back down whether the audience was a Jim Crow racist or a US president.

Lowery died at home in Atlanta, surrounded by family members, they said in a statement.

He died from natural causes unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak, the statement said.

Lowery is survived by his three daughters, Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery and Cheryl Lowery-Osborne.