Civil Rights icon Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, who has been called the dean of the civil rights movement, died Friday at the age of 98, according to the The King Center. Lowery co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the Rev. Martin Luther King in the 1960s and won several awards throughout his esteemed career. He delivered the benediction at President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom that year. In 1965 Dr. King chose Lowery to chair the delegation that delivered the demands made at the Selma-to-Montgomery march to Alabama governor George Wallace. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family,” The King Center tweeted Friday after Lowery’s death was confirmed. “He was a champion for civil rights, a challenger of injustice, a dear friend to the King family.”