Sumter de Leon Lowry Jr., Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetSumter de Leon Lowry Jr.
Date of Birth: 27-Aug-1893
Place of Birth: St. Augustine, Florida, United States
Date of Death: 03-Feb-1985
Profession: military personnel
Zodiac Sign: Virgo 
About Sumter de Leon Lowry Jr.
- Sumter de Leon Lowry Jr.
- (August 27, 1893 – February 3, 1985) was an American insurance executive, National Guard officer, and political candidate from Florida.
- A veteran of the Pancho Villa Expedition, World War I, and World War II, he is best known for his service as commander of several units in the Florida National Guard.
- Lowry served in the military for 38 years and attained the rank of major general.
- Apart from his military service, he is remembered for his opposition to racial integration, on which he based his unsuccessful 1956 campaign for governor of Florida. A native of St.
- Augustine, Florida, Lowry was raised in Tampa, where his father served as a member of the city commission.
- He was educated in Tampa, and was a 1914 graduate of Virginia Military Institute.
- After graduation, Lowry began his long association with the United States Army by joining the Florida National Guard and organizing a new unit, Company H, 2nd Infantry Regiment, which he commanded as a captain.
- Lowry served with his unit on the Texas-Mexico border during the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916-1917.
- The 2nd Florida Infantry was federalized for wartime service as the 124th Infantry, and sent to France as replacement soldiers.
- Lowry served with the unit in the U.S.
- then went to France as commander of Company I, 331st Infantry.
- The Armistice occurred before his company saw combat, and he performed post-war occupation duty until returning home in early 1919.
- After the war, he participated in the Florida National Guard's reorganization by helping organize the 116th Field Artillery Regiment, which he eventually commanded as a colonel.
- Lowry also began a career in the insurance industry in the early 1920s, and was the longtime chairman of the board of the Gulf Life Insurance Company.
- In 1934, he was promoted to brigadier general as commander of the 56th Artillery Brigade, a unit of the 31st Infantry Division. Lowry was among the Florida National Guard members activated for World War II; he commanded the 31st Infantry Division Artillery, and participated in the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea campaigns, for which he received the Bronze Star Medal and other awards.
- After returning to Florida after the war, Lowry aided in the state's post-war National Guard reorganization, and was assigned to command the 51st Infantry Division as a major general.
- He retired from the military in 1952; in addition to receiving the Army Distinguished Service Medal, he received a state promotion to lieutenant general on Florida's retired list in recognition of his many years of service. An ardent anti-communist and a believer in racial segregation, Lowry regarded the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s as an extension of a plot to spread communism throughout the world.
- In 1956, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida.
- Running on the single issue of maintaining school segregation, Lowry failed to gain much traction, and was defeated by incumbent LeRoy Collins, who went on to win the general election.
- In 1962, he made a run for the United States House of Representatives in a newly-created Tampa-based district.
- Running on a segregationist platform, he lost the Democratic nomination to Sam Gibbons, who went on to win the general election. In retirement, Lowry continued to reside in Tampa.
- He died there on February 3, 1985, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Tampa.
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