SCLC Pres. Joseph Lowery announces resignation

Jet, March 3, 1997

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), recently announced that he plans to step down in July.

Lowery has been head of the civil rights organization since 1977. He has been involved with the Atlanta-based group since it was founded in 1957 by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and other ministers.

"I'm not leaving the scene, I'm only leaving the day-to-day activities," Lowery said in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "There is no way I will retire from the movement.

"...It has been a tough thing. I have tried to fight the good fight. My job was to raise the moral issue in regard to social and economic (issues) affecting Black folks. I think we accomplished that."

Lowery. 74. said he plans to relax, write several books, spend more time with his family and hit the lecture circuit.

Raleigh Trammell, SCLC board vice chairman, said SCLC has started a search for Lowery's successor. It plans to swear in the new president in July at the SCLC national convention in Atlanta.