Basic Information
Name: James Morris Lawson, Jr.
Nickname: Jim, Jimmy from the Block, JLaw
Born: September 22nd, 1928
Died: Still going like the Energizer Bunny
Nationality: American
Hometown: Uniontown, PA
WORK & EDUCATION
Occupation: preacher, activist, professor
Education: Baldwin-Wallace College: B.A.; Boston University: S.T.B. (Bachelor of Sacred Theology); Oberlin College School of Theology; Vanderbilt University
FAMILY & FRIENDS
Parents: Philane May Cover & James Morris Lawson, Sr.
Siblings: Nine, which is enough for a pretty substantial game of dodgeball
Spouse(s): Dorothy Woods Lawson
Children: John Lawson, Seth Lawson, and James Morris Lawson III
Friends: MLK, the SCLC, SNCC, FOR (see below), Gandhi if he hadn't been assassinated, Vanderbilt University
Foes: violence, racism, the U.S. military (Lawson was jailed for refusing to register for selective service, the government's euphemism for forcing you to go somewhere and kill or be killed), Vanderbilt University
Analysis
James Lawson was more or less the SCLC's Mr. Miyagi. Except, instead of teaching people to wax, sand, and paint, he taught 'em how to get hit and yelled at. Not exactly conducive to a rousing climax where you crane-kick your opponent in the chin, but hey—whatever works, right? And even though he got zero free housework out of it, Lawson believed nonviolence works.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Come on Down
Now, if it weren't for James Lawson, MLK never would have gone to Memphis. We know what you're thinking: "OMG! You killed Kingy! You [redacted]!" And, yes, it is very unfortunate, and we're sure Mr. Lawson probably asked himself approximately a bajillion times, "What if I hadn't asked Martin Luther King, Jr. to get involved in that sanitation workers' strike?"
At the same time, MLK had been getting threatened for a long time. His house was bombed during the Montgomery bus boycott 12 years prior, and the fun never stopped. So Lawson had no reason to believe his project would be any more dangerous than any other. That ended up being wrong, but that's what happened.
So what was Lawson doing in Memphis, and why was he involved in the strike? Was he on a road trip to Graceland? Visiting the National Civil Rights Museum? Just some kind of eccentric garbage enthusiast?
Stay tuned to find out.
Peace Cred
First up, James Lawson was in Memphis because he lived there. Lawson moved to Memphis in 1962, after he'd been politely invited, we mean mandatorily disinvited, from Vanderbilt University. He was expelled.
Why would the university do such a thing to someone who's important enough to have his very own medium-length Shmoop page? Because they didn't like that he was organizing student sit-ins in Nashville. "This guy is fighting for equality," they thought. "Getting rid of him will definitely not make us look like benighted racists in the relatively near future. Let's do it."
So they did.
Now, as you might imagine, James Lawson wasn't just some random preacher who one day up and decided to instigate some sit-ins. Although there wouldn't be anything wrong with that. No, James Lawson had credentials. He had peace cred.
In 1952, ten years before his move to Memphis, Lawson had done missionary work in India. If you've read around in this guide a little bit, you know that can only mean one thing: gulab jamun, yum. No, it means Gandhi. Lawson, like Bayard Rustin before him, ended up in India studying Gandhian nonviolent activism, which he put to use when he got back to the States (source).
Nonviolent Ninjutsu Guru
How'd he put it to use? Well, he met a certain Martin King. In 1957, one of Lawson's professors at Oberlin introduced them.
Dr. K got all excited about the Gandhi connection—he'd joined the Mahatma Appreciation Society, which is not a real thing, during the Montgomery bus boycott—and he convinced Lawson to bring all that nonviolent ninjutsu down to the segregated South, where it was totally needed. That's how Lawson ended up moving from Oberlin (the town) to Nashville, Oberlin (the college) to Vanderbilt, and getting involved with the SCLC.
As director of nonviolent education for SCLC, James Lawson was a trainer. Specifically, he trained people on how to conduct themselves during nonviolent demonstrations. Like, when someone spits on you, please refrain from choking them to death with your bare hands. That kind of thing.
Lawson also worked with the SNCC, which was another major civil rights group, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization (source). He was pretty much the nonviolence guru—the guy who thought about things. How do we use nonviolence to effectively accomplish our goals in this particular situation? Why are we even bothering with nonviolence? Why aren't we just clubbing people with dead fish? That was James Lawson.
Especially When the Trash Isn't Being Collected and Dead Fish Are Readily Available
Now, back to Memphis. As we know, Lawson was living in Memphis when the sanitation strike began. As the SCLC's man in Memphis, he got involved organizing things with various church leaders and activists.
Negotiations with the city soon broke down. Then a march went badly. There was a misunderstanding, the police thought they were being attacked, so they started Macing and beating people, which is typically an excellent way to deal with misunderstandings. Lawson decided the problem was looking pretty gnarly, and no one wanted a repeat of that mess.
So he called in Dr. K, who came to Memphis, led another march, and…created pretty much the same mess. But it wasn't his fault.
And we know the rest. King's name was tarnished by the violence during his march; he wanted to come back to Memphis to fix it; so he did come back, gave his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, and then got killed. But not before he gave this shout-out to James Lawson:
And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years. He's been to jail for struggling; he's been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggling; but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. (21.1)
James Lawson isn't the most famous figure from the Civil Rights Movement, but he was like the gears in a watch, working tirelessly on the inside.
Keeps on Ticking
Oh yeah—Vanderbilt. You remember how they expelled Lawson? Predictably, they ended up embarrassed by that; a few decades of historical progress will do that to you. So guess who got the Vanderbilt 2005 Distinguished Alumni Award? Guess who was the 2006–2007 "distinguished visiting professor"? The answer isn't Gandhi this time—it's James Lawson, baby (source).
In 1974, Lawson moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to fight for various causes: reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants' rights, that sort of thing. As late as 2014, at the age of 85, Lawson was leading workshops on nonviolence.
And if that's not awesome enough, he was was portrayed by Jesse Williams in the 2013 film The Butler.