| 1 | House Resolution |
| 2 | A resolution honoring the late Reverend Alfonso Leon |
| 3 | Lowry, Sr. |
| 4 |
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| 5 | WHEREAS, on August 20, 2005, the homeless, the helpless, |
| 6 | and the hopeless lost an advocate, a mentor, and a friend, and |
| 7 | the nation lost an icon of the civil rights movement, when the |
| 8 | Reverend Alfonso Leon Lowry, Sr., succumbed to congestive heart |
| 9 | failure at the age of 92, and |
| 10 | WHEREAS, born in Savannah, raised in New York City, and |
| 11 | educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where his association |
| 12 | with the civil rights movement began in the 1940's and where he |
| 13 | once taught theology to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the |
| 14 | Reverend Lowry moved to Tampa in 1956 to become pastor of Beulah |
| 15 | Baptist Institutional Church until his retirement in 1995, and |
| 16 | WHEREAS, in the 1960's, the Reverend Lowry proved himself a |
| 17 | leader in the cause of equality, organizing students from Booker |
| 18 | T. Washington Junior High School and Blake and Middleton High |
| 19 | Schools for peaceful protests at the city's segregated |
| 20 | department stores, lunch counters, beaches, and other public |
| 21 | facilities, insisting always that everything be done with |
| 22 | dignity and pride, and |
| 23 | WHEREAS, the Reverend Lowry helped found Tampa's first |
| 24 | biracial bank; became president of Florida's National |
| 25 | Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in which role |
| 26 | he conferred with President Kennedy at the White House; was the |
| 27 | first African American elected to the Hillsborough County School |
| 28 | Board, on which he served for 16 years; was awarded The Florida |
| 29 | Bar's medal of honor for easing racial tensions and promoting |
| 30 | social justice; and was presented with the Liberty Bell Award by |
| 31 | the Hillsborough County Bar Association in 1980, and |
| 32 | WHEREAS, acclaimed and honored by the great, loved and |
| 33 | revered by the humble, the Reverend Lowry was said to have |
| 34 | expressed the hope that he be remembered only for "helping make |
| 35 | the world a better place than it was when he entered it," NOW, |
| 36 | THEREFORE, |
| 37 |
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| 38 | Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of |
| 39 | Florida: |
| 40 |
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| 41 | That the Members of the House of Representatives affirm |
| 42 | that the hope of the late Reverend Alfonso Leon Lowry, Sr., has |
| 43 | been realized many times over and express their sincere |
| 44 | gratitude and deep admiration for his life as a major force for |
| 45 | progressive change against the nation's system of racial |
| 46 | segregation. |
| 47 | BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be |
| 48 | presented to Mrs. Shirley Lowry, widow of the late Reverend |
| 49 | Lowry, as a tangible token of the sentiments expressed herein. |