Check out Civil Rights Leader, Rev. Joseph Lowery's speech at Virginia Key yesterday. Hit on the audio on the Herald page. It is a very funny speech and also touching. He starts his speech with a reference to his good friend Arthur Teele. He also talks about the significance of Virginia Key Beach Park in the civil rights movement.From The History Makers:
"Lowery began his work with civil rights in the early 1950s in Mobile, Alabama, where he headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places. During this time, the state of Alabama sued Lowery, along with several other prominent ministers, on charges of libel, seizing his property. The Supreme Court sided with the ministers, and Lowery's seized property was returned. In 1957, Lowery and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 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."
He calls himself a Northerner, from "Northern Alabama". In one instance Lowery talked about asking for a hamburger and Coke at a lunch counter. The waitress said: "We don't serve Negroes. He said: "I didn't order a Negro." Much more to the speech, check it out.
1 comment:
We could not have chosen a better speaker for this occasion than Dr. Lowery (who generously agreed to come at a very substantial reduction of his usual speaking fee). He was a co-founder with Dr. M.L. King, Jr., Dr. Abernathy and others, and a past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) which guided so much of the Civil Rights Struggle, and he embodies so much of the spirit of that time.
This was also very much the spirit of Historic Virginia Key Beach Park in its heyday. (It is probably fair to say that this spirit also included his being so hilariously funny in his speech; the struggle for social justice is a struggle, but it is still all about life and living and enjoying.)
Also, enough cannot be said about Eye on Miami and all of the extremely valuable support that this blog has provided for efforts like the restoration and reopening of HVKBP, just by keeping the truth out there and providing so much of that all-too-rare commodity in this part of the world: intelligent analysis.
Thanks for all that you do, and for sharing this story with your readers. Keep up the good!
Gene Tinnie
Chair, Virginia Key Beach Park Trust
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