William Grady Lowe, Jr.

1949 -

William Grady Lowe, Jr.
William Grady Lowe, Jr.. Image Source: Buccaneer, 1968.

In the spring semester of 1969, William Grady Lowe, Jr. helped make history at ECU through his contributions to East Carolina’s first “Black History Week” and then shortly thereafter, through his engaged support for the “Ten Demands” presented to President Leo W. Jenkins by members of SOULS (Society of United Liberal Students). A photograph published in the 1969 Buccaneer shows Lowe addressing a group of students on the mall, explaining the demands. And Lowe signed the submitted copy of the “Ten Demands” in bold script, as “Brother Mr. William Grady Lowe, Jr.” Whether or not he was part of the contingent that went to President Jenkins’ home on Fifth Street to discuss the pace of change is not clear, but he no doubt supported such action. Lowe was not alone in advancing the cause of African American students, but he was among the more outspoken. While steps were underway towards realizing many of the demands, the efforts of Lowe and SOULS substantially accelerated the pace of effective social and academic progress.

Lowe’s readiness to make a stand grew from his upbringing in Wilmington: his father, William G. Lowe, Sr. (d. 1981), was an outspoken civics teacher at Williston High School, a black school, during the 1950s. Among Lowe’s students in the Class of 1959 was Joseph McNeil (1942- ), one of the first four participants in the Greensboro Sit-In of February 1960. McNeil later attributed his activism in part to his civics teacher, “Mr. Grady Lowe” who insisted that he and others stand “up for our rights and not to take crap from anybody here. We’re American citizens with … rights. You know, the Bill of Rights. We don’t have to play second fiddle to anybody. Sit-up and stand-up.” McNeil added, Mr. Lowe “made sure all of us left Williston High School knowing who we were, proud of who we were, to stand up for our rights no matter where we were, and to carry ourselves like men.” McNeil noted, “People like Grady Lowe prepared us, teaching us how to stand up for our rights. We knew one day it would come, and it came when we finally made up our minds to put an end to it.” The lessons learned by McNeil were not lost on William Lowe, Jr., as his time at ECU reveals. Nor did William Lowe, Sr.’s commitment end with words: by the late 1960s, he became a pioneer in desegregated education as one of the first African American teachers at the new and integrated John T. Hoggard High School in Wilmington, a position he retained until his retirement in the 1970s.

Born in Charlotte in 1949, William Lowe, Jr. grew up in Wilmington from 1950, the year his father began teaching at Williston. However, in 1967, he graduated from New Hanover High, a newly desegregated school, albeit with few African Americans. He next entered East Carolina College, soon East Carolina University, desegregated but with precious few African American students. In 1968, he became one of the founding members of SOULS and, according to Charles Davis, its first president, it was Lowe who suggested the name “SOULS” for the reconceptualized Negro Grievance Committee which preceded it.

During the February 1969 observance of Black History Week, Lowe contributed an article, “Black Political Party,” to a two-page spread in the East Carolinian. There, he described the recently founded Black Panther Party, its goals, methods, and revolutionary nature as a force advancing the cause of blacks. Lowe’s admiration for the party’s founders, Bobby Seales, Huey P. Newton, and Eldridge Cleaver, reflected his own development of the more moderate NAACP approach his parents supported throughout their lives.

Much as Lowe’s article outlined the “ten basic points” of the Black Panther Party, so did SOULS, in March of 1969, come to formulate its “Ten Demands” for racial and academic change. Lowe’s personal support for these demands – calling for an end to campus performances of “Dixie” and campus displays of the Confederate flag, the introduction of black studies courses, the hiring of black faculty, admission of more black students, and other forms of support for the black student body at ECU – was made indelible with his bold signature.

Lowe’s was one of the more forceful voices in the spring of 1969. As dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic pace of change intensified, Lowe remarked, according to the East Carolinian, that he found it necessary to “quote an American more feared than Communist China and the USSR: ‘If America don’t come around, damn if we won’t burn it down’ – H. Rap Brown. Maybe the students at ECU won’t burn it down, but negative racial practices won’t go unchecked.”

Along more moderate lines, Lowe defended demands for black faculty, explaining “When you see your race being cast in the role of invisible people, it gives you a feeling of inferiority. One of the most important reasons for black professors is a sense of identification. If you see a black man in front of the class, you are proud of your color.” In responding to SOULS, President Jenkins repeatedly warned against threats of violence, no doubt alluding to the heated rhetoric reported in the East Carolinian.

Lowe’s contributions to ECU’s progress toward authentic integration at all levels, in faculty, academic programs, and student numbers, plus his emphasis that African American students be treated with respect rather than Jim Crow condescension, helped transform the school. In many respects, his address on the mall explaining SOULS “Ten Demands” actively embodied his father’s quintessentially American teachings about standing up for one’s rights and refusing adamantly to be treated as an inferior. There can be no doubt that Lowe’s impact on the Spring 1969 drive to aggressively oppose campus discrimination, prejudice, racist symbolism, and overall marginalization of the African American student body was of the first order. Clearly, a new level of black power had come to ECU, and the latter would never be the same.

Sources

Additional Related Material

William Lowe presents a list of ten demands to students. Image Source: Buccaneer, 1970.

Citation Information

Title: William Grady Lowe, Jr.
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 2/15/2021

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