Known as “the architect of the Nonviolence Movement of America,” the Rev. James Lawson mentored Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African-American leaders from the 1950s through today’s movement for Black Lives Matter.
THE LEGENDARY LOS ANGELES CIVIL RIGHTS civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson, the man Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world,” has been honored by the Los Angeles City Council, celebrating his 95th birthday by declaring Sept. 22 as “Rev. James Lawson Jr. Day” annually in the city.
The council passed a resolution commemorating Lawson, and a celebration was held in Council Chambers last week. Lawson did not attend the meeting.
Lawson inspired and counseled King numerous other civil rights leaders who changed the world in mid 20th century America. Lawson’s story is one of the nation’s cornerstones.
In interviews with civil rights reporters throughout his lifetime, he has often repeated the story of what led him to accept non-violence as a guidance for life.
“I had my first racial insult hurled at me as a child,” Lawson has said, on more than one occasion. “I struck out at that child and fought the child physically. Mom was in the kitchen working. In telling her the story she, without turning to me, said, ‘Jimmy, what good did that do?’ And she did a long soliloquy then about our lives and who we were and the love of God and the love of Jesus in our home, in our congregation. And her last sentence was, ‘Jimmy, there must be a better way.’ In many ways that’s the pivotal event of my life.”
Lawson was a man “who, without counsel, had decided by the young age of 16 to challenge Jim Crow laws, and by the age of 21 had developed clarity that America’s Selective Service Act was an unjust law that he would not obey,” according to the documentary “A Better Way: James Lawson, Architect of Nonviolence.”
His former student, the late Congressman John Lewis, labeled him “the architect of the Nonviolence Movement of America,” as he has mentored Black leaders from the 1950s through today’s movement for Black Lives Matter.
“Reverend Lawson was recruited by Dr. King to teach the power of nonviolence as the only way to eliminate segregation,” said State Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, who visited the council chamber for the occasion. “He taught us about the power of non-violence. Together, we transformed the lives of housekeepers, dishwashers and cooks, who had been invisible because they were women of color.”
According to the council’s resolution, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself described Lawson as the “architect of the civil rights movement.”
Lawson helped lead the historic 1960 Nashville sit-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter, the Freedom Rides in 1961, and throughout the 1960s continued to organize nearly every major student sit-in, march and protest.
“Rev. Lawson’s leadership throughout the decade was instrumental in the desegregation of the South, and his teaching on nonviolence practices and civil disobedience continue to inspire generations of civil rights leaders across the country,” the resolution reads.
In 1974, Lawson moved to L.A., where he served as pastor for the Holman United Methodist Church for 25 years. He worked with janitorial, hotel and restaurant workers to develop nonviolent tactics and supported the organizing of low-wage workers across the county.
Over the years, Lawson has spoken out against racism and violence, as well as in support of immigration rights, equal rights for the LGBTQ community, community diversity and solidarity.
Lawson taught “Nonviolence and Social Movements” at UCLA for more than 20 years, and established a strong relationship with Cal State Northridge through his involvement with the university’s Civil Discourse and Social Change Initiative.
The reverend received the UCLA Medal — the university’s highest honor — in 2018, and in 2019, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame based on the governor’s nomination.
In 2021, the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center was dedicated as the permanent home for the UCLA Labor Center across from MacArthur Park.
“Rev. James Lawson Jr. Day” will acknowledge Lawson’s birthday and celebrate his “remarkable achievements to advance the philosophy of nonviolence, promote human dignity, and build a more just society,” the resolution states.
“After the climax of the civil rights movement, Rev. Lawson actually came here to the city of Los Angeles (in 1974), and how fortuitous that he actually came to this city because so much was happening a decade after he was here,” said Councilman Hugo Soto Soto-Martinez said.
“We had a lot of immigrants that were coming to the county, many of them who were undocumented.”
Council President Pro Tem Marqueece Harris-Dawson said Lawson could have “chosen anywhere in the world to live,” but chose L.A. and to “engage in the struggle of the city, and lead a movement.”
Harris-Dawson recounted the last time he saw Lawson, which was when Lawson, then 93, came to City Hall to picket and demand the city “do better than we have done.”
Councilwoman Heather Hutt also introduced a motion to dedicate a section of Adams Boulevard from Crenshaw Boulevard to Arlington Avenue as “Reverend James Lawson Mile.” The motion will be considered at a future council meeting.
PHOTO CAPTION: Rev. James Lawson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Ralph Jackson at a press conference on March 28, 1968, during the sanitation workers strike in Memphis. A week later, on April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis.
