Civil Rights Leader Dr. Joseph E. Lowery Honored in Huntsville Ceremony

Published on September 14, 2016

City of Huntsville and area community leaders gathered today to honor Dr. Joseph E. Lowery at a ceremony to formally dedicate the new downtown gateway, Dr. Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard.

“This honor belongs also to the men and women who went through the cauldron of political conflict and challenge to make this possible,” Dr. Lowery said. “They have forged new avenues of being for Huntsville and now Lowery Boulevard will be right in the middle of it. One day when I’m gone, when the bells have tolled for me, I’ll be yonder looking down upon my brothers and sisters… fathers and mothers who have started a new day in Huntsville – a day when color is irrelevant but character is pertinent.”

“Dr. Lowery was missing from our initial road opening ceremony in April,” Mayor Tommy Battle said. “Council Member Dr. Richard Showers worked especially hard on the arrangements so that we were able to properly recognize him and celebrate his tremendous impact on our community. It is an honor and privilege to pay tribute to man who knows a thing or two about creating new gateways into the future.”

Dr. Lowery, 94, attended the ceremony with his three daughters and members of the Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice and Human Rights.

The Dr. Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, downtown’s newest gateway from Governor’s Drive to Big Spring Park, offers a dramatic and beautiful new entrance into the heart of Huntsville. It includes decorative lighting and landscaping, and supports bicyclists and pedestrians with 10-foot multiuse paths on each side.

The “Dean of the Civil Rights Movement” was born in Huntsville and was instrumental in the fight against social injustice in the Civil Rights Movement. Lowery helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and eventually became its Chairman. Lowery played an active role in the 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery.