Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., the died on June 9, 2024 on the age of 95was a Methodist minister and a powerful advocate of nonviolence in the course of the civil rights movement.
Lawson is best generally known as the pilot of two crucial civil rights campaigns – one in Nashville in 1960 and the opposite in Memphis in 1968.
In Nashville, Lawson trained students within the systematic use of non-violent pressure tactics. Multiracial student teams would sit at local lunch tables reserved for whites to violate segregation laws. Most importantly, it prepared them to be beaten or arrested. Following the instance of Mahatma Gandhi, who used nonviolent resistance to oppose the British occupation of India, students engaged in collective nonviolent direct motion. When the primary wave of scholars were beaten or arrested, one other wave of scholars poured in behind them to take their places.
Hundreds were arrested or beaten before their actions prompted Nashville Mayor Ben West to publicly declare segregation immoral—a signal to downtown business owners that it was time to finish Nashville's segregation policy.
In Memphis, Lawson organized what became the last election campaign within the lifetime of Martin Luther King Jr.King got here to Memphis to affix forces with 1,300 impoverished garbage staff who were striking against their employer, the Memphis City Council, over poor wages and dealing conditions. When two staff, Echol Cole and Robert Walkerwere crushed by a garbage compactor as they sought shelter from the rain. The staff had had enough and went on strike. Ultimately, they won a small pay rise and modest improvements within the workplace.
By 1968, Lawson had established himself as a number one authority on nonviolent conflict, a fact what King himself testified. I studied Lawson and I argue that he was probably the most significant figures within the nonviolent civil rights movement of the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties.
Early influences
Lawson grew up in Massillon, Ohio. His father, James M. Lawson Sr., was an African Methodist minister. who carried a gun on his hipPerhaps an odd influence for a nonviolent advocate, however the elder Lawson taught his son to all the time fight for what is true.
His mother taught him the ability of affection. After Lawson slapped a white child for calling him a racist name, his mother patiently asked, “Jimmy, what did that do… there has to be a better way.” Lawson called this moment “a supernatural experience, a transformative experience…that began my experiment to find the better way.”
As a student at Baldwin Wallace College, he was inspired by Abraham Johannes Tintewhich Time magazine called America’s “Pacifist primary.“ Muste represented the Community of Reconciliationthe oldest pacifist anti-war group in US history.
Lawson also closely followed the work of the Congress for Racial Equality when it challenged racial segregation laws with nonviolent direct motion within the early Forties.
Lawson realized he had a likelihood: he could challenge racial segregation, and he could do it with nonviolence. Inspired by these examples, Lawson decided never to obey a segregation law againHe said: “I have made a commitment that… I will not allow myself to be disciplined or twisted into something I am not.”
Nonviolence and racial segregation laws
Lawson put his philosophy into practice when the United States entered the Korean War in 1950. Lawson concluded that he wouldn’t cooperate: “There were certain laws that Christians did not have to follow: the segregation laws and the military draft laws. So I sent back my draft notices and said I could no longer join.”
He believed that conscription laws had the identical fundamental problem as racial segregation laws. They too were “a complete denial of the meaning of freedom.”
Lawson spent nearly 14 months in prison for refusing to fight within the Korean War. After his parole, he went to India, where he worked with the Student Christian Movement in Nagpur. Lawson tried to raised understand the situation. Gandhian principles This enabled him to make use of them within the fight against racial segregation, racism and violence under Jim Crow laws.
In the autumn of 1957, Lawson decided to maneuver south and have become the Southern Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a predominantly white pacifist group that had long been concerned about African-American civil rights. Based in Nashville, Lawson traveled to all the former Confederate states except Florida during his first full 12 months of labor. Teaching the philosophy and practice of non-violent protest.
He taught black Christian students that by resisting racial segregation they were imitating Jesus, who challenged the oppression of the Roman Empire.
Anthony Siracusa
Lawson taught his students that Jim Crow laws were designed to make black Americans feel and behave like second-class residents. He argued that it was unethical to abide by such laws. Anyone who knowingly cooperates with evil resides a lie, Lawson argued. To share in a single's own suffering and the suffering of others is a fate worse than death, he said.
His compelling argument convinced many Americans that they may not cooperate with Jim Crow. As his student Diane Nash recalled: “Oppression all the time requires the participation of the oppressed.”
Lawson and students across the country used nonviolent noncooperation to finish legalized racial segregation within the United States. He taught his students that they need to be willing to fight and die for the reason behind human freedom and justice, but that they need to not kill.
Lawson's influence lives on
Lawson continued his philosophy of nonviolence when he moved to California in 1974. He allied himself with the Justice for caretakers movement and gave workshops on non-violence until his death.
Lawson leaves behind powerful lessons. In a recent documentary entitled “Love & Solidarity“, Lawson said, “Love is power. It is essentially the most creative power within the universe. It is the best force available to humanity. Humanity must learn the way to use it.”
In a world stuffed with violence, Lawson showed us that nonviolence a good more powerful force To create societies characterised by justice, freedom and equality.
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