Rev. James Lawson at Edgewood College
People movement history
People movement history
Edgewood College students Zachary Kimbrew (l) and
Tyrone Cratic-Williams (r) greet Rev. James Lawson at
Edgewood.
Tyrone Cratic-Williams (r) greet Rev. James Lawson at
Edgewood.
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
One of the leaders of the civil rights movement is Rev. James Lawson who spoke at
Edgewood College April 23 through their Distinguished Lecture series. While Dr. King was the
figurehead of the civil rights movement, Lawson was the heart of its commitment to non-violence
as an effective tool for social change.
For the past 50 years, Lawson has been involved in the civil rights movement — what he
calls the peoples movement to emphasize that the movement was bigger than just civil rights —
and has stayed involved as others have come and gone.
Lawson first became aware of Dr. Martin Luther King — whom he calls Martin King — in
December 1955 when King was leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Lawson was a campus
minister and coach at Hilsop College in Nagpur, India. They met face to face a year later when
Lawson enrolled in graduate school at Oberlin College and King was visiting the campus and
they talked in a small dining room.
“I said to him that eventually when I finished my graduate degrees, I would probably move
South and get involved in the movement,” Lawson said. “Martin looked me dead in the eye and
said ‘Don’t wait, come now. We need you now.’ So I heard myself say — I was very puzzled how
Part 2 of 2
One of the leaders of the civil rights movement is Rev. James Lawson who spoke at
Edgewood College April 23 through their Distinguished Lecture series. While Dr. King was the
figurehead of the civil rights movement, Lawson was the heart of its commitment to non-violence
as an effective tool for social change.
For the past 50 years, Lawson has been involved in the civil rights movement — what he
calls the peoples movement to emphasize that the movement was bigger than just civil rights —
and has stayed involved as others have come and gone.
Lawson first became aware of Dr. Martin Luther King — whom he calls Martin King — in
December 1955 when King was leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Lawson was a campus
minister and coach at Hilsop College in Nagpur, India. They met face to face a year later when
Lawson enrolled in graduate school at Oberlin College and King was visiting the campus and
they talked in a small dining room.
“I said to him that eventually when I finished my graduate degrees, I would probably move
South and get involved in the movement,” Lawson said. “Martin looked me dead in the eye and
said ‘Don’t wait, come now. We need you now.’ So I heard myself say — I was very puzzled how
that could happen — ‘I will come as soon as I can.’ That meant I did drop out of graduate school and decided on landing in Nashville, Tenn. in January 1958.
That started my connection in the southeastern part of the country and the movement. I had my first workshop where I taught Martin King Jr. on non-violence in
Columbia, South Carolina that January.”
Wherever major confrontations occurred between the civil rights movement and the established order, Lawson could be found preaching the philosophy
and tactics of non-violence. One of those confrontations was in Little Rock Arkansas in September 1957 when the Little Rock Nine — nine African American
high school students — were the first to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School against the organized efforts of public officials and private groups like the Klu
Klux Klan. Lawson was there teaching the students about non-violent resistance in the living room of Daisy Bates, the chair of the Arkansas NAACP at the time.
“I will never forget that experience,” Lawson said. “You may or may not know this story, but this story is both a hopeful one and a tragic one. Those nine students
were determined to go to school to help the process of desegregation in Little Rock. The White Citizen’s Council, the KKK, the governor and all sorts of people
organized to resist it. The White Citizen’s Council persuaded a number of White students in the high school that when it happened, they would make it so
miserable for them that they would leave. The evening when I first met them, they had just come from a day at Central High. They were very exhausted. I
basically encouraged them to talk. They were told as they went into the school to not fight back. I became very angry with that. I know what their parents and the
adults meant by ‘Do not fight back.’ But then I had them portray for me what they were putting up with. Then I tried to help them recognize that they could fight
back and if they were going to survive spiritually and physically, they had to fight back. But they had to fight back using non-violence, not imitating the hurt or
the brutality of the harassment or intimidation or trying to beat up on anyone, but to use their whit and intelligence and their sense of being and compassion and
fight back with superior weapons.”
Lawson went on to be involved in many of the major events of the civil rights movement and was jailed many times in places like Ruleville and Jackson,
Mississippi, Nashville, Tennessee and Greensboro, South Carolina. Lawson helped coordinate the Freedom Rides and the Meredith March in Mississippi. In
1974, he moved to Los Angeles where he became the pastor of Holman Methodist Church.
Lawson looked at the movement as larger than the civil rights movement. He calls it ‘The People’s Movement.’ While many cite the voting Rights Act or the
Civil Rights Act as the movement’s biggest victories, Lawson disagrees. “I happen to think that what was much more important in the 1960s was the decision on
the part of the Congress and Lyndon Johnson backed by millions and millions of people to establish early childhood education, which they call Head Start, was
for Congress to put money in the universities so that students could do their university education literally without going into debt,” Lawson said. “Much of this was
cut by the Democrats and the Republicans alike. But the point I make to you is that movement of millions of people who were in the streets, thousands of
demonstrations from Hawaii to Maine, caused Congress to see an agenda about what the population of our society would require and what we need as a people.
Now you might be among those folk who could always provide early childhood education or felt you had the resources to care for your child age people. My wife
and I have had done this with three so we know what that task is. But the well-being of the American people must not be judged by the well-being of Rupert
Murdock.”
For Lawson, the movement was the fulfillment of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. “It was the finest movement that
we Americans have launched thus far in our nearly 400 year history to achieve equality, liberty and justice for all, the best we ever had,” Lawson said. “Anyone
who is thoughtful about our society knows that our society is an experiment in democracy and self-government. It has not yet achieved that. We like to pretend
we have achieved it. We have not. We did achieve noble aims in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. I think these are extraordinary
documents. But always, we have been on a journey towards making it real. We had these wonderful words and ideas way ahead of their time, no doubt, in
contradiction to aristocracy, monarchy, tyranny and the rest of it, in contradiction to government in a patriarchic way. They were wonderful words. But we acted
as if half of the population was invisible and not included in the Constitution. I happen to think, therefore, that one of the marvelous achievements of the
movements of the 1950s and 1960s was this, that for the first time in the history of the United States, lawyers were able to go to the Supreme Court systematically
and got almost unanimous decisions by the Supreme Court that said the Constitution includes everyone living in this society. It had never happened before.”
The history of the civil rights movement bears many lessons for today’s activists. Lawson reflected on the 2006 immigration marches and how the immigration
reform movement fizzled as it turned to lobby Congress. He had advocated for the immigration reform movement not to abandon the marches until after their
demands had been met because history was repeating itself.
“We experienced this in the 1960s because the Democratic Party and the Kennedy Administration all tried to persuade King and others of us to move from
the demonstrations in the streets to organizing for voter registration,” Lawson recalled. “I was with a group from the Freedom Ride with Robert Kennedy where he
pressed us hard about doing the voting registration. Voting registration wouldn’t do it. A comprehensive attack on the whole structure was important. Voting
registration was just one aspect of it and wasn’t necessarily the most important aspect of it. It was like laying down our arms before we became a movement of
the kind of strength that we needed. I wouldn’t go with that and lobby to get them to do the bill. They won’t do the bill rightly unless their agendas have been so
disrupted that they can’t do anything else but get it right.”
And for Lawson, the need for the movement and the movement are still alive, the noble aims of the U.S.’s founding documents have not yet been
achieved. “Our society in the 21st century still needs a moral, spiritual, political, non-violent revolution,” Lawson said. “We need to look in our history and take
what others have done before us and in the 21st century, we need to have a even more spectacular struggle that will put millions of people in a level of
consciousness and action that will change the agendas in the local, state and national levels.”
As long as injustice remains, the movement will march forward.
That started my connection in the southeastern part of the country and the movement. I had my first workshop where I taught Martin King Jr. on non-violence in
Columbia, South Carolina that January.”
Wherever major confrontations occurred between the civil rights movement and the established order, Lawson could be found preaching the philosophy
and tactics of non-violence. One of those confrontations was in Little Rock Arkansas in September 1957 when the Little Rock Nine — nine African American
high school students — were the first to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School against the organized efforts of public officials and private groups like the Klu
Klux Klan. Lawson was there teaching the students about non-violent resistance in the living room of Daisy Bates, the chair of the Arkansas NAACP at the time.
“I will never forget that experience,” Lawson said. “You may or may not know this story, but this story is both a hopeful one and a tragic one. Those nine students
were determined to go to school to help the process of desegregation in Little Rock. The White Citizen’s Council, the KKK, the governor and all sorts of people
organized to resist it. The White Citizen’s Council persuaded a number of White students in the high school that when it happened, they would make it so
miserable for them that they would leave. The evening when I first met them, they had just come from a day at Central High. They were very exhausted. I
basically encouraged them to talk. They were told as they went into the school to not fight back. I became very angry with that. I know what their parents and the
adults meant by ‘Do not fight back.’ But then I had them portray for me what they were putting up with. Then I tried to help them recognize that they could fight
back and if they were going to survive spiritually and physically, they had to fight back. But they had to fight back using non-violence, not imitating the hurt or
the brutality of the harassment or intimidation or trying to beat up on anyone, but to use their whit and intelligence and their sense of being and compassion and
fight back with superior weapons.”
Lawson went on to be involved in many of the major events of the civil rights movement and was jailed many times in places like Ruleville and Jackson,
Mississippi, Nashville, Tennessee and Greensboro, South Carolina. Lawson helped coordinate the Freedom Rides and the Meredith March in Mississippi. In
1974, he moved to Los Angeles where he became the pastor of Holman Methodist Church.
Lawson looked at the movement as larger than the civil rights movement. He calls it ‘The People’s Movement.’ While many cite the voting Rights Act or the
Civil Rights Act as the movement’s biggest victories, Lawson disagrees. “I happen to think that what was much more important in the 1960s was the decision on
the part of the Congress and Lyndon Johnson backed by millions and millions of people to establish early childhood education, which they call Head Start, was
for Congress to put money in the universities so that students could do their university education literally without going into debt,” Lawson said. “Much of this was
cut by the Democrats and the Republicans alike. But the point I make to you is that movement of millions of people who were in the streets, thousands of
demonstrations from Hawaii to Maine, caused Congress to see an agenda about what the population of our society would require and what we need as a people.
Now you might be among those folk who could always provide early childhood education or felt you had the resources to care for your child age people. My wife
and I have had done this with three so we know what that task is. But the well-being of the American people must not be judged by the well-being of Rupert
Murdock.”
For Lawson, the movement was the fulfillment of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. “It was the finest movement that
we Americans have launched thus far in our nearly 400 year history to achieve equality, liberty and justice for all, the best we ever had,” Lawson said. “Anyone
who is thoughtful about our society knows that our society is an experiment in democracy and self-government. It has not yet achieved that. We like to pretend
we have achieved it. We have not. We did achieve noble aims in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. I think these are extraordinary
documents. But always, we have been on a journey towards making it real. We had these wonderful words and ideas way ahead of their time, no doubt, in
contradiction to aristocracy, monarchy, tyranny and the rest of it, in contradiction to government in a patriarchic way. They were wonderful words. But we acted
as if half of the population was invisible and not included in the Constitution. I happen to think, therefore, that one of the marvelous achievements of the
movements of the 1950s and 1960s was this, that for the first time in the history of the United States, lawyers were able to go to the Supreme Court systematically
and got almost unanimous decisions by the Supreme Court that said the Constitution includes everyone living in this society. It had never happened before.”
The history of the civil rights movement bears many lessons for today’s activists. Lawson reflected on the 2006 immigration marches and how the immigration
reform movement fizzled as it turned to lobby Congress. He had advocated for the immigration reform movement not to abandon the marches until after their
demands had been met because history was repeating itself.
“We experienced this in the 1960s because the Democratic Party and the Kennedy Administration all tried to persuade King and others of us to move from
the demonstrations in the streets to organizing for voter registration,” Lawson recalled. “I was with a group from the Freedom Ride with Robert Kennedy where he
pressed us hard about doing the voting registration. Voting registration wouldn’t do it. A comprehensive attack on the whole structure was important. Voting
registration was just one aspect of it and wasn’t necessarily the most important aspect of it. It was like laying down our arms before we became a movement of
the kind of strength that we needed. I wouldn’t go with that and lobby to get them to do the bill. They won’t do the bill rightly unless their agendas have been so
disrupted that they can’t do anything else but get it right.”
And for Lawson, the need for the movement and the movement are still alive, the noble aims of the U.S.’s founding documents have not yet been
achieved. “Our society in the 21st century still needs a moral, spiritual, political, non-violent revolution,” Lawson said. “We need to look in our history and take
what others have done before us and in the 21st century, we need to have a even more spectacular struggle that will put millions of people in a level of
consciousness and action that will change the agendas in the local, state and national levels.”
As long as injustice remains, the movement will march forward.