Gone But Never Forgotten

With passing of Dr. Joseph Lowery yesterday the majority of the hard guard leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference has passed on. In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fresh from the victory in the Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott called together 59 ministers to form an organization that was dedicated to the nonviolent direct action movement of gaining civil and equal rights for African Americans throughout the nation especially in the southern states. These men became the vanguard of the movement and the SCLC became an organization that would rival any civil rights organization nationwide. The names of SCLC Leadership that have passed on include Ralph Abernathy, Benjamin Hooks, James Bevel, Hosea Williams, Dorothy Cotton, Coretta King, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and of course Martin Luther King Jr. There remains few names of the SCLC vanguard from the late 50s’ to the late 60s’, still alive are Andrew Young, Jessie Jackson, and James Lawson. So today in honor of those who passed and to Joseph Lowery, I present a photographic salute to those who have passed on. You can learn a lot about perseverance, determination and dedication to a cause by learning about the history of these great black men and women.