Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery to Receive Eighth Annual Shuttlesworth Award
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On Friday, November 13, 2009, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Board of Directors will honor Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery with the prestigious Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award during the Institute's Seventeenth Anniversary Dinner. This annual fundraiser takes place in the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel Ballroom. A 6:00 p.m. reception precedes the 7:00 p.m. dinner.
Reverend Joseph Lowery was born in Huntsville, Alabama. Long considered the "Dean of the Civil Rights Movement," he has recently been named a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That award will be presented to him by President Barack Obama on August 12 at the White House. In 1957, Lowery, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and Lowery was named vice president. In 1965, he was named chairman of the delegation to take demands of the Selma to Montgomery March to Alabama's Governor at the time, George Wallace. During that same year, Lowery relocated to Birmingham and served as pastor of the St. Paul United Methodist Church until 1968 (when he became pastor of the Central United Methodist Church in Atlanta). From 1977 until 1997, Lowery served as National President of the SCLC.
Tickets and corporate tables can be purchased for the dinner. For information, call (866) 328-9696, ext. 236 or visit the Institute's Web site at www.bcri.org.
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