Evelyn Lowery, wife of Civil Rights activist Joseph Lowery, passed away due to a stroke.
She was 88.
Lowery was the daughter of activists. Her father, a Methodist preacher, was the president of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP and her mother was actively involved in community organizing. She inherited her parents activist spirit and participated in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. In 1979 she founded the SCLC/WOMEN–Women’s Organizational Movement for Equality Now–an organization that was created to “champion the rights of women, children and families, and respond to the problems of the disenfranchised regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, or religion.” This organization gave a voice to women during the Civil Rights Movement and Lowery formed alliances with other women’s organization to fulfill SCLC/WOMEN’s goals. She also created the “Drum Major for Justice” award named in memory of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and is awarded to those who contribute to the cause of freedom, equality, and achievement in their professional field.
Lowery was a woman of substance in her civic and social justice involvement on top of being a wife and a mother to three children. She is survived by her husband Joseph Lowery, three daughters, a sister, and a grandchild.
The Urban Ministries family sends their condolences to the Lowery family during this difficult time.