REV. JAMES LAWSON: EXTRAORDINARY PRACTITIONER AND STRATEGIST OF REVOLUTIONARY NONVIOLENCE (1928–2024)
Lawson’s Soul Force
James Lawson was one of the leading spiritual, moral, and political voices of our time. Yet, many people have not heard of him, despite his extraordinary contributions to the civil rights movement and to the renewal of the labor union movement. From the Nashville sit-ins of 1960 onward, Lawson played a key role in developing movement strategy and was its foremost tactician. Starting with his organizing the sanitation workers in Memphis in the 1960s, he was continuously involved in the training of union leaders in nonviolent struggle and in the campaigns for the rights of janitors, hotel workers, and home care workers. He also helped to organize students and alumni at UCLA to use creative nonviolence to gain justice for undocumented immigrants; UCLA students were at the forefront of the national movement.
After his passing in June 2024, fellow black activists described how Lawson avoided the media circuit and would not attend award ceremonies or dinners where he would be the center of attention and praise. Unlike many leaders of the black struggle, he did not compete for status and recognition and had no entourage. For him, it was all about the work. But he never neglected his family. His promise to his family which he faithfully kept was that regardless of the work at hand, he would be back for 6pm dinner. Lawson was not there at the motel in Memphis the evening that King was shot in 1968; he was home with his family.
Lawson lived with full awareness of who he was, always keeping the purpose of his life in mind. He was a model person for this age. His example helped people stay on track as they took up his challenge to live “with all your might to be a person of compassion and truth who stands with all humanity, with human affections, and thereby allows your life to become a prayer for a new earth and a new heaven.”
To those who listened to or interacted with him, Lawson offered a treasure house of stories from Lawson’s nonviolent campaigns, sharp analysis of current events, interpretations of historical trends, and explorations of future possibilities. his training of union leaders in nonviolent struggle and his involvement in the campaigns for the rights of janitors, hotel workers, and home care workers. He also helped to organize students and alumni at UCLA where he taught since 2002 to use creative nonviolence to gain justice for undocumented immigrants; UCLA students were at the forefront of the national movement.
As a speaker Lawson seamlessly combined moral earnestness, sharp intellect, revolutionary spirit, and good will. However, unlike Dr. King, he put his emotions on hold, and would say with a rueful chuckle that his country was the greatest force for evil in the world due to its penchant for violence. During his time organizing in the civil rights movement, he was always careful not to arouse black people’s anger at racial injustice. It was more important first to appeal to their intellects rather than their emotions so they could see the logic of nonviolent struggle. As a result, they could assent more easily to the nonviolent methodology, buy into its strategy, and make the large sacrifices it would entail.
Social Criticism
Even after he passed 80, Lawson’s moral clarity, critical intelligence, and total commitment to the nonviolent struggle for justice were apparent to all who encountered him. Those who attended his workshops and talks or had personal contact with him revered him. They were excited to hear his firsthand experience of the nonviolent movements and his explanations of their philosophy, historical role, and implications for social change. The nonviolent struggle from 1953 to 1973 stood out because it showed how Gandhi’s methodology could be successfully practiced in a non-Indian context, in a nation strongly committed to violence and imperial dominance. And, as Lawson emphasized, when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, it posed a direct challenge to the Western values of violence, war, and militarization.
In Europe, and in the US, in particular, liberals overlook the evils of plantation capitalism, the dominant economy of Western civilization based on a steady supply of cheap labor. Despite the triumph of neoliberalism, and the shutting out of criticism from the mainstream, Lawson maintained an uncompromising stance, demonstrating that plantation capitalism, as well as racism and sexism, was an evil that could not be tolerated.
Even though Lawson published only two books, he was very well read with vast experience to draw upon as he commented on the past, present, and future of American society. His social criticism was broad and deep, forcing audiences to rethink assumptions, expand their imagination, and to become more inclusive, critical, and compassionate in their outlooks. Despite the horrors of the American past and the continued injustices of the present, he never gave up his belief that people can change and follow the calling of their higher selves.
His ability to focus on the essence of an issue and convey its wider meaning was striking, often coming up with a particularly arresting way to make his point. For example, he said in the 20th century people all across the world had come to recognize the benefits of modern science as a means of gaining truth and understanding the cosmos. Yet, they have hardly begun to explore the power of soul force, the creative energy of the universe, which he saw as the antidote to Western civilization’s reliance on violence as the central principle for accomplishing social change. Lawson added that the only way to achieve equality and justice for all human beings is through soul force.
When he spoke about politics, Lawson emphasized the need for a moral and political awakening in tandem with a democratic movement that would address the systemic forces that have long kept people down and robbed them of their humanity. It is time for each of us to say that we have had enough and that the current situation can’t continue. The political parties have little to offer us so the people themselves must struggle to bring us closer to realizing the principles we say ew hold most dear about human equality. The nonviolent movement of the 1950s and 60s was the catalyst for significant shifts in policy as the federal government provided funds for the education of poor children and better housing, for the development of depressed areas, Medicare, and conservation; at the same time, laws were enacted to protect voting rights. The kind of popular energy that made all these innovations possible must be reborn.
Lawson was a guide for understanding Black Lives Matter, which he saw as the twenty-first century version of the nonviolent movement for realizing a more just society. The issue of police killing and brutality is that of slavery, the thousands of twentieth century lynching, the many deaths in jails that are classed as “suicides.” Now black people are standing up and saying that these killings are unjustified, must be exposed, and must stop. The mission of what has been called the civil rights movement was to show the nation that black lives matter, a struggle that continues today. Lawson stressed the huge number of BLM nonviolent demonstrations in 2020 in all 50 states and the success of their strategic plan of supporting the victims’ families so they could grieve privately and publicly.
A Commitment to Nonviolence
As a fourth grader, James Lawson experienced a defining moment. When a racial insult was hurled at him, he hit the child and told his mother about what happened. His mother said to him that there must be a better way than using violence. This was a turning point and he knew that he would never again physically retaliate when angered. Yes, there must be a better way and he would find it.
When he was in the third-year of high school, Lawson staged a sit-in at a drugstore counter. After being denied service, he remained for over an hour. While in high school, he decided to become a minister, the fourth in a line dating back to his great-grandfather.
During his college days, he attended a talk on Gandhi by A. J. Muste, a leading pacifist and head of the worldwide Fellowship of Reconciliation. His discussions with Muste sparked an interest in the theory and practice of nonviolence. In 1951, on the verge of graduation, he refused to seek a military deferment as a graduate student, minister, or conscientious objector. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and he was sentenced to three years in federal prison but received parole after serving thirteen months. Assigned as a Methodist missionary in India for three years, he intensified his efforts to understand Gandhi whom he believed was the most important religious-political figure of his era.
In India, Lawson was thrilled when he read about the Montgomery bus boycott. When it was time to leave India, he decided to return to the US by way of Africa where he was gratified by the increasing opposition to colonialism. Back in the US, he enrolled at Oberlin for graduate study in religion in 1956 and after a few months M. L. King came to speak there. Lawson had a chance to meet and talk with King who became excited when he heard that Lawson had made a thorough study of Gandhi and had spent time in India. Lawson also informed King that he hoped to work in the South as an activist minister after completing a doctoral program. In response, King asked him to join the nonviolent struggle in the South immediately; someone of his background was needed to help lead the movement and keep it on course. Lawson soon moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he resumed graduate study at Vanderbilt. His mission in life had become clear: he would teach nonviolence and lead protests to change the South and bring about black freedom.
Lawson was very young when he personally renounced violence and discovered his life purpose. It is remarkable that his father, a member of the clergy, encouraged Lawson to fight those who put him down with racial slurs, whereas his mother, deeply religious, explained to him that God and his family loved him and with all this love supporting him, what harm could such an ignorant insult do? His mother’s words penetrated deeply, and he later described this experience as a “numinous moment,” that is, a time of illumination and enlightenment. As an adult, whenever he became angry and was tempted to fight back, he recalled what his mother had told him. His mother’s character and example helped him to uncover what was best in himself, the qualities of great inner strength, fearlessness, and fortitude.
The Nashville Sit-Ins of 1960
The video A Force More Powerful portrays the Nashville sit-in movement which was meticulously organized by Lawson. The young college students whom he trained stood out for their discipline, self-restraint, and courage. Although the Montgomery bus boycott had demonstrated the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance, this time the protestors physically confronted the South’s segregated legal and social order, leaving themselves open to arrest and to violent as well as verbal attacks by white mobs.
Lawson prepared sit-in participants for all eventualities. In Nashville, they spent six months discussing why they wanted a movement and then another six months discussing what they wanted to do before the training of volunteers began. The campaign was organized according to the four principles that Lawson had distilled from Gandhi’s nonviolent struggles. First, the volunteers and the community were prepared while ensuring broad democratic participation. Second, they analyzed the dynamics of power and negotiated among themselves what demands they would make. Third, the various methods for bringing about change were considered. And fourth, they decided what made up a victory, solidified what had been gained, and planned the next direct action.
The protests at the lunch counters were carried out so that those students who were arrested were then replaced by others. Even though the police allowed white thugs to physically harm the students, the protests did not stop. There were 300 volunteers in the first wave, and the political establishment was at a loss in dealing with such a well-organized and systematic campaign. The local moderate segregationists stalled and offered palliatives but the students continued to sit at the lunch counters. The arch segregationists expected a violent conflict and armed themselves while getting Vanderbilt University to expel Lawson and the judges to issue a warrant for his arrest.
But black shoppers boycotted the downtown stores and whites were scared to shop there so the retail businesses floundered. After white supremacists bombed the home of a black lawyer and city councilman, a march was organized and about 4,000 protestors went to see the mayor. Diane Nash, a student trained by Lawson, confronted the mayor who admitted that it wasn’t morally right for merchants to refuse service to those buying their goods. Nash got him to agree to desegregate the lunch counters. This was done gradually to avoid inflaming white resentment. The demeanor of the students as they stood up for racial justice and appealed to the consciences of white people helped to change overall attitudes. As Lawson had predicted, white people began to question their stereotypes of black people as the students acted in ways that resembled those of their own children.
The shift in attitude was gradual, and protests were carried out at segregated facilities for the next few years. Beatings and arrests did not abate. Equally important as the weakening of white racial hatred was the support from members of the black community that emerged. The selfless actions of the students had attracted wide attention and gained them the commitment of black adults to observe the boycott.
The black activists who participated in the sit-ins felt they had momentum and a direct action method to challenge segregation in the South on a broad scale. With Lawson and other black student leaders, they soon formed their own organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). To make inroads into segregation in the deep South where sit-ins met more determined opposition, SNCC assisted the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) in organizing the Freedom Rides to dramatize the need for compliance with the Supreme Court ruling that interstate buses and terminals had to be desegregated.
The personal qualities that made Lawson special were noticed by his students. John Lewis, civil rights icon and US Congressman, said Lawson’s workshops enabled him to find his calling, which he had been searching for his whole life. Through Lawson’s teachings, words were turned into what was real and whole. In Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998), Lewis tells us: “I was an eager student for this stuff, just voracious, and I couldn’t have found a better teacher than Jim Lawson. I truly felt — and still feel today — that he was God-sent. There was something of a mystic about him, something holy, so gathered about his manner, the way he had of leaning back in his chair and listening — really listening — nodding his head, saying, ‘Yes, go ahead,’ taking everything in before he would respond. Very patient. Very attentive. Very calm. The man was a born teacher, in the truest sense of the word.”
Union Organizing
Lawson attracted brief national attention in the context of the black struggle for justice due to his central role in the Memphis sanitation workers strike of 1968. After coming to Memphis in 1962 to serve as pastor, he was soon involved with unions in efforts to enact a minimum wage for workers. In 1968, he was the chairman of the strike committee that called in Dr. King to galvanize support for sanitation workers. The day after his famous “promised land” speech, King was assassinated by a sniper.
The union organizing in Memphis represented the maturing, in Lawson’s view, of what has been called the civil rights movement. It brought on center stage the injustices of plantation capitalism, which had a 250-year history in the United States. When the movement addressed the issue of economic exploitation and rapaciousness, it signaled a new beginning for its struggle that had great significance for Lawson’s future activism. His union organizing in Memphis carried over to the next phase of his life in Los Angeles, where he was the pastor of the Holman Methodist Church from 1974 to 1999 and lived for 50 years until his recent passing.
In Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom (2020), Lawson explains his thinking on how to organize workers and the spiritual ideals that motivated him. In Memphis, Lawson was heartened by the sanitation workers who had grown up working in the cotton fields and had received only a brief and inferior education. Through union membership, they were empowered by viewing their struggle as a matter of justice and as an economic, cultural, and moral issue. In Los Angeles, Lawson helped to train the hotel and restaurant employees of the UNITE HERE Local 11 union in nonviolent organizing, civil disobedience, and how to deal with the police. These workers were of different races. The working poor were reached through one-on-one contact, going regularly to their homes until they were ready to talk about their lives. Rather than trying to convert them to unionism, they were offered understanding and community, at least until they could find their own voice.
Lawson’s effect on union leaders and its members and on the next generation of labor activists in Los Angeles was profound. He brought the message of nonviolence to his fellow clergy as well, co-founding Clergy and Laity Uniting for Economic Justice in 1996 and serving as chairman for about 15 years. Pastors and congregations became concerned about the lives of their working members, many of whom were poor. Most importantly, they began by inquiring about the conditions of their own staff workers: Did they earn decent wages and pensions and health care? Economic justice committees were set up to instruct people on the scriptures and what they imply about the treatment of workers; in the process the congregation became familiar with working conditions in their environment.
After his passing in June, some union leaders, labor activists, clergy remembered the Rev. James Lawson. Maria Elena Durazo was the head of UNITE HERE Local 11 for seventeen years and she credited Lawson with teaching her and union leaders how to incorporate nonviolent direct action strategies that enabled their union to blossom. He brought depth as the union members imbibed his message that they have the ability to change as individuals and to change their movement in order to demand and get dignity and respect. She misses him enormously, having depended upon him, and his words keep resonating as she goes about her present duties as State Senator.
Susan Minato is co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11 and a notable activist for many years. She attributes the very relational nature of the union to Lawson’s influence. The Beloved Community is built on long-term relationships and trust, and Lawson used much of what he had done in the South as the basis for his work with the union. Minato only realized how close she had gotten to him when her mother died. He called her on that day, offering her the counsel of a minister; she felt so honored and cared for. Now she thinks of him every day, just like she thinks of her mother every day.
Lawson also had a great personal impact on Rev. Scott Marks, chair of UNITE HERE Black Leadership Committee, who wanted revenge when Dylann Roof shot and killed his favorite cousin in Charleston, South Caroline. He called Lawson and this conversation helped him to reaffirm a commitment to a nonviolent way of life. For Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Labor Center, Lawson taught him about nonviolence and how to apply the lessons from the campaigns in the South to the situation in Los Angeles. He was also a mentor and friend whom Wong misses deeply. The Rev. Bridie Roberts, the Community Organizing Director for UNITE HERE Local 11 saw Lawson as mentor, teacher, spiritual partner, and someone she could call on for direction and advice while coming up with strategies for nonviolent resistance. He practiced such resistance in a powerful, creative, and loving way, crediting opponents with the ability to change and participate in the work of building the Beloved Community.
