Obama’s Benediction

The American people, fueled by the Media’s heavy and biased coverage – have made a very big issue out of Obama selecting Pastor Rick Warren, who advocate for Proposition 8 to perform the Invocation at Obama’s January 20th Inauguration.  In the wake of California’s passage of Proposition 8, Homosexuals and their allies have done much to keep this topic in the forefront of our nation’s consciousness.  What has been largely ignored by the media, and therefor what resides outside the ken of much of America is that there are two (2) religious rites at an Inauguration – the Invocation and the Benediction.

I find it quite telling and quite sad that only the Invocation is considered newsworthy, and that only because of the controversy surrounding Obama’s selection of Pastor Warren to perform. Obama’s choice of the priest to deliver the Benediction should have gotten a lot more coverage than has so far.

President-elect Barack Obama has selected Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a stalwart of the civil rights movement and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to perform the Benediction at Obama’s Inauguration.

The 87-year-old retired pastor has been a stalwart of the civil rights movement. For over a half century Lowell as been in the front lines in the fight for racial equality.

In the 1950s – prior to much of the more publicized Civil Rights movements – Lowery headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places.

In 1957, Lowery, along with Revs. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth, co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Civil Rights organization that propelled Dr. King to international prominence.

In 1959, Lowery’s property was seized in along with that of other civil rights leaders by the State of Alabama as part of a libel suit filed by the Montgomery, AL police department. It took four years and U.S. Supreme Court ruling to reverse the lower courts decision.

Rev. Lowery is a co-founder and former president of the Black Leadership Forum, an umbrella organization for various civil rights groups.  As part of the Black Leadership Forum Lowery was among the first five African Americans to get arrested at the South African Embassy in Washington D.C. during the anti-apartheid demonstrations.

Reverend Lowery has repeatedly advocated for LGBT rights, considering them nothing more or less than normal civil rights, and supports same-sex marriage as one of those basic rights that all Americans are inherently owed.

Gods in their Heavens! Lowery led the Selma March at MLK’s direct request in March, 1965. Go look up “Bloody Sunday”!

It’s truly sickening that the MSM in its quest for ratings and its fervor to denounce Conservatives has willfully ignored Rev. Lowery’s selection to perform perform the Benediction at President-elect Obama’s Inauguration.

Edited – January 20, 2009: The full transcript of Lowery’s Benediction can be found here.

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5 Responses to “Obama’s Benediction”

  1. goodtimepolitics Says:

    We all know that MSNBC only reports smears at the conservatives and thats why their rating are so low. Yes Rev. Joseph E. Lowery is a good man and will do the nation honor! So will Pastor Rick Warren!

  2. jonolan Says:

    True on all counts, goodtimepolitics, and thanks for stopping by and commenting.

    I don’t like Warren, but that has more do to with theological differences than anything else. I think he’ll do a good job with the Invocation.

  3. Lowery's Benediction | Reflections From a Murky Pond Says:

    […] rights movement and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The was little talk of this in the weeks leading up to the Inauguration because the MSM was too busy attacking the choice of […]

  4. tara Says:

    I was so proud to watch the historic inaguration and as I felt tears coming, I immediately felt alienated by the reverend’s ending … “whites to embrace what is right”. I felt that the fact that Obama was elected our President proved that we had come far beyond racial divides. He is my President and represents everyone. This was a day to come together as a nation not to put a certain group of people “in their place” when they clearly embrace our choice as well.

  5. jonolan Says:

    Tara,

    I sympathize with you but you might want to read Black Tuesday for my opinion on the issue of the state of the American racial divide.

    Lowery is what he is and that is a product of his times. While his rhetoric is less objectionable than Rev. Wright’s, they both come out of the same theology and social opinion. The only real difference is that Lowery put himself on the line time and again during the ’50s and ’60s.

    One cannot expect people such Lowery or Wright to truly believe that Obama “represents everyone.” I doubt that Lowery can viscerally accept that Whites voted for Obama accept as an act of contrition.

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