Martin Luther King Jr.
Legendary civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery says it’s a major mistake for contemporary Americans to ignore the faith that inspired the activism of Martin Luther King Jr.
“They have made Martin a glorified social worker, and they have almost made our young folks believe that all Martin did was go around dreaming,” says Lowery, who in 1957 co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Rev. King, who was a Baptist minister. “He was a nonviolent militant. He was a Christian radical.”
That’s the sort of unabashedly Christian proclamation that Lowery likes to sprinkle in his sermons, The Washington Post notes in this profile of the lively 87-year-old black religious leader.
And Lowery, who will deliver the benediction on Tuesday at President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, isn’t shy about crediting God with Obama’s victory in November.
“For white folks in the South to vote for a black man as president is drastic. This is revolutionary,” Lowery says. “The Democratic Party can take credit, but the Democrats didn’t do it. God did it. God was in the plan. Nobody else could have gotten these white folks to vote for a Negro named Barack Obama.”
— Tom McFeely
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