Rev. James Lawson, longtime civil rights activist, dies at 95 – KIRO 7 News Seattle

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Heather Hutt confirmed his death in a statement to City News Service.

“Reverend James Morris Lawson was a leader in our community and the world whose messages of love and nonviolence left an indelible mark on the civil rights movement and influenced many,” she said. “I am deeply saddened to hear of his passing, but I know his legacy will continue to live with us for generations to come. His message of love will live on forever in every heart he touched. May he rest in peace.”

Lawson was pastor of Holman United Methodist Church from 1974 until his retirement in 1999, KTTV reported. A mile-long stretch of Adams Boulevard from Crenshaw Boulevard to Arlington Avenue in front of the church was designated the Reverend James Lawson Mile in January.

Lawson was a close adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who called him “the world’s leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence,” the Associated Press reported. He met King in 1957 after spending three years studying Mohandas K. Gandhi’s independence movement.

He was one of the “noble men” recognized as leaders of the struggle for civil rights in his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.

“He was in prison for fighting back,” King said. “He was kicked out of Vanderbilt University because of his fighting, but he still goes on and fights for the rights of his people.”

Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1928. Both his father and grandfather were Methodist ministers, and he received his preacher’s license in 1947, PBS reported.

He attended Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. When Lawson was drafted into the U.S. Army, he refused to serve because of his belief in nonviolence and was sentenced to two years in prison, KTTV reported.

In 1958, Lawson entered the theological faculty at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where he was one of the few blacks on campus, the Washington Post reported.

He began conducting workshops on nonviolent protests for King’s newly founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which, according to the newspaper, would become a central organization of the civil rights movement.

King appointed Lawson as the SCLC’s director of nonviolent education in 1962, the Post reported. His strict ban on peaceful protests would form the foundation of the group’s philosophy.

“I told them we have the tools for change in our hearts, in our hands and in our minds,” Lawson later told a reporter. “The sins of a nation can be changed.”

As The Tennessean reported, Lawson worked with King, Diane Nash, John Lewis and CT Vivian in the 1960s to promote nonviolent activism.

He participated in the 1968 Memphis garbage collectors’ strike and called on King to participate. According to the newspaper, Lawson was one of the leaders of the silent march in Memphis in honor of King after he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.