Says Dr. Joseph Lowery: Obama’s

black doubters have a ‘slave mentality’
Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 04:09 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In an address to the Hungry Club at Butler Street YMCA in downtown Atlanta, the Rev. Joseph Lowery re-stoked the fires on Wednesday when he told the largely African-American audience that “a slave mentality” was fueling black doubts about Obama’s chances of capturing the White House.

The report comes from our AJC colleague, John Hollis, who was at the event.
“No matter how much education they have, they never graduated from the slave mentality,” Lowery said of those who have advised Obama to wait, or have doubted his ability to compete in a general election.

“The slavery mentality compels us to say, ‘We can’t win, we can’t do,’” said Lowery, an avid Obama supporter and a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Strong words, when you consider that they include people like U.S. Rep. John Lewis or former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young.
Lowery likened discouraging comments about Obama to ones Martin Luther King received while imprisoned in a Birmingham jail in 1963.

A number of local white ministers told King at the time they agreed with him, but they didn’t think the time was right for such civil dissent.
“Martin said the people who were saying ‘later’ were really saying ‘never.’ But the time to do right is always right now,” Lowery said.

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