“We Will Not Be Quiet” — Reverend James Lawson Jr., Civil Rights Activist
James Lawson honored Civil Rights Icon John Lewis with a powerful speech
James Morris Lawson Jr., an American activist and university professor who worked along side Congressman John Lewis during many marches and sit-ins. He experienced along with Mr. Lewis much injustice and racism at the hand of the Jim Crowism while fighting for equal rights and voting rights.
At the final home-going service for Mr. John Lewis, his speech was like reading a historical book about an icon from the perspective of an African American champion. Glued to the screen as his words mesmerized hearts and ears with so much passion with trials and triumphs. Mr. Lewis had to be smiling from the spiritual realm as so many gave homage and gratitude for all the beatings, jailing, successes, life as a politicians and the resounding effect of much love and adoration for a life well lived and survival that many should strive to, to get into “Good trouble.”
Mr. Lawson along with many speakers, former president Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr and Jimmy Carter’s sentiments, shared with the world the greatness of a gentle outspoken giant. Their words were befitting a king and royalty as he was laid to rest in a famous slave cemetery. South View Cemetery, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Lawson was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement during the the 1960s as he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His involvement with the movement caused him to be expelled from Vanderbilt University due to a misleading story in the newspaper, Nashville Banner, but years later, 2006, Vanderbilt apologized. Lawson taught at Vanderbilt from 2006 to 2009, and donated his papers in 2013.
His father and grandfathers had been Methodist ministers and he was awarded his ministry license in high school. He was the six of nine children and grew up in Massillon, Ohio. During his early days at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, he was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to two years in prison for refusing to serve in the US Military. He served 13 months and later returned to college. During this time his activism included, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), an organization led by A.J. Muste, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an organization affiliated with FOR, all advocated nonviolent resistance to racism.
Later while attending Oberlin College’s Graduate School of Theology in Ohio, one of his professors introduced him to Dr. King Jr. who was instrumental in his moving to the south. He moved to Nashville where he attended Vanderbilt University and taught nonviolent protest techniques.
While in Nashville, he met and mentored a number of young students at Vanderbilt, Fisk University on the tactics of nonviolent direct action and trained many of the future leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, among them Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry and John Lewis. In 1959 and 1960, they and other Lawson-trained activists launched the Nashville sit-ins to challenge segregation in downtown stores, the lunch sit-ins by students at the Woolworth’s stores in Greensboro, North Carolina where he and several others were arrested. Their actions led to desegregation of some lunch counters. Lawson’s students played a leading role in the Open Theater Movement, the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington DC, Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade, the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement over a few years.
Other accomplishments included Centenary Methodist Church’s Pastor in Memphis, Tennessee, chaired the strike committee for the Memphis Sanitation Strike, co-founded the Committee on the Move to Equality (COME), pastor of Holman United Methodist Church, activism with American Civil Liberties Union, chaired Laity United for Economic Justice, hosted Lawson Live, spearheaded California State University Northridge’s Civil Discourse and Social Change Initiative and received 2004, the Community Christ International Peace award.
In conclusion, you can’t judge a book by looking at its cover. After hearing Mr. Lawson speak at John Lewis home-going service, opening the book to his life and times was astounding as I decided to share a glimpse into the life and times of Reverend James Lawson Jr., Civil Rights Activist, Professor, and staunch Non-Violent proponent. “We will not be quiet” his resounding words to continue the “Good Trouble” per Mr. John Lewis to ensure equal and civil rights for all.
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