Potent Force Of Civil Rights Era Seeks A Leader And Relevance Joseph Lowery Is Leaving Sclc, Which Faces Complex Concerns.

ATLANTA — The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, kept trying to rush out to his next appointment, but he kept getting interrupted: by his staff, by visitors, by the telephone.

Mr. Lowery, 75, is used to it. The civil rights leader has been part of the controlled chaos at the SCLC's cramped headquarters since the group was formed - in the burgeoning days of the movement that would transform the South.

Now, Mr. Lowery is retiring, and the organization that he's headed for half its existence is at a crossroads.

The SCLC, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in February, must struggle to retain relevance - to a growing black middle class whose concerns are increasingly diverse, and to a generation of young African Americans who see the epic struggles of the past as merely the stuff of history.

``SCLC will have to relate to this new group of people if it's going to appeal to the black middle class, which it must do to survive because they're the ones who have the money,'' said William Boone, a political scientist at Clark Atlanta University.

A nationwide search is being conducted to find Mr. Lowery's successor, who will be installed in July during the national convention here.

The only person to express interest in the position, at least publicly, is State Rep. Tyrone Brooks, who heads the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus and has been active for years in the SCLC.

Whoever gets the nod, the SCLC's next president - who will be only its fourth, and the first not forged in the heat of civil rights battles - will face questions of a complexity and subtlety that his predecessors could scarcely have imagined.

``And he faces probably a steeper mountain,'' Mr. Lowery said. ``He will not only have to fight for justice, he'll have to convince the nation that there is still racial injustice to be fought. The nation is in a state of denial.''

* Joseph Lowery, who was born in Huntsville, Ala., was pastor of a church in Mobile when he came to Atlanta in 1957 to help form the SCLC - along with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., other ministers from the South, and some activists from the North.

The new organization was created so that leaders of the church - the one institution present in every black community - could organize and harness the disparate but growing protest movements against Southern segregation.