Joseph Lowery - Moments of the Movement

Though we hear a lot about bombings and physical attacks, efforts to take down leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement came in many forms. Rev. Joseph E. Lowery knows that all too well. He, along with Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, and Solomon Seay, was a defendant in New York Times v. Sullivan. Though known widely as a case that defended freedom of the press, L.B. Sullivan, the Montgomery police commissioner, also sued Lowery et al for defamation over the advertisement, “Heed Their Rising Voices.” The full-page ad detailed ways in which authorities in the south terrorized non-violent protesters. Here, Rev. Lowery talks about the case as it was argued before the Supreme Court, and the unexpected fallout as a result.