Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr.

Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr. was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio. From a very young age, he was greatly impacted by the influence of his family, his congregation, the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and his parents: Philane May Cover and Rev. James Lawson, Sr. As a consequence, when he was in high school, he opposed all forms of racism and religious bigotry and began to study the teachings of Gandhi while in college. He soon realized that what he was practicing could be called nonviolence. In his twenties, he recognized the need to oppose the draft and, therefore, refused to report when he was drafted for the Korean War. He was arrested in 1951 and served fourteen months in prison as a draft resistor. After his incarceration, Rev. Lawson traveled to India as a Methodist missionary and followed in the footsteps of Gandhi to further his study of nonviolence. Upon his return to the United States, he studied at the Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College in Ohio. On February 6, 1957, Rev. Lawson met face-to-face with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. following an event at the college. At the culmination of the meeting, after explaining to Dr. King that he planned to eventually move south, Dr. King said, “Come now – we need you now. We don’t have anyone like you down there.” Shortly thereafter, Rev. Lawson decided to move to Nashville to be closer to the emerging Nonviolent Direct-Action Movement. Rev Lawson enrolled in Vanderbilt’s Divinity School and taught nonviolence to many future civil rights leaders, including Diane Nash, John Lewis, James Bevel, Marion Barry, and Bernard Lafayette, among others. He was, eventually, expelled from Vanderbilt for his political activism. However, in 2006, Vanderbilt formally apologized to Rev. Lawson and appointed him to their faculty. The university later created the Lawson Nonviolence Institute. In 1974, Rev. Lawson moved to Los Angeles, where he became pastor of Holman United Methodist Church for twenty-five years. He continued his social justice work locally and nationally. He believes, just as Dr. King, that all work has dignity. He has worked extensively with a wide range of unions and other organizations that fight against poverty, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights, and the anti-war movement. Rev. Lawson has received honorary degrees from over twenty colleges and universities around the country. He has taught at many schools, including Vanderbilt, Harvard Divinity School, Claremont, and USC and continues to teach nonviolence strategies at CSUN and UCLA, through its Labor Center. The fourth Saturday of each month, Rev. Lawson teaches a Nonviolence Workshop that has been ongoing for more than twenty years. Rev. Lawson is the wonderful husband of Mrs. Dorothy Lawson, father of three sons, a daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren.