Reverend James Lawson was central for implementing and training civil rights activists in tactics of nonviolent resistance. He first adopted non violence as a way of life as early as fourth grade without knowing that was what he was doing. In an oral interview with SPARC he describes an incident in which a white child blurted a racial slur to him while running an errand for his mother. He smacked the boy, finished the errand, and went home where he told his mother about his experience. His mother expressed how unnecessary that was because he was loved and there was no verbal insult that could change his humanity. She told him that there must be a better way and from then he recalled a turning point when his inner voice said:  “I will never again fight with my fists…and Jimmy you will find a better way.” This experience fueled his pacifism as he organized nonviolence as early as the 1940s and through college where he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Lawson moved to Memphis in 1962 to become a pastor for Centenary United Methodist Church, as he continued his work in tactics of being nonviolent. While in Memphis, he helped organize the Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968 where he invited Dr. King to join in support. 

Reverend Lawson’s steps of nonviolent organizing are inspired by Gandhi’s use of nonviolence. Since Lawson first developed his teachings on nonviolent resistance he has since boiled down nonviolence organizing into four steps. The first step is preparation of individuals and communities for nonviolent struggle. This includes research and building a framework in which everyone can participate. Step two is negotiations. Step three is direct action. And step four is follow-up. 

Lawson describes the power and importance of nonviolence in these ways: 

     “Nonviolence creates a public conflict. Not from the side of the disorder, but from the side of order. It generates a new power grid. That the status quo has rejected. That power grid that is rejected that is created is the power of people linking their hands and their arms together in their purpose together and then doing weapons that confront injustice…That’s why numbers are important” [Oral History Interview with James Lawson 

     “Well, nonviolence in many ways was an effort to help people see that they were of infinite worth and dignity. That their very life, in fact, was a center of the life of the universe; that the full power of what life is all about is located in every single human being. And no matter how tortuous that person’s life is, they still have certain power if they’re willing to exercise it and cultivate it and use it. And it may be risky, but it can be done. So the whole notion of nonviolence, philosophically, is that you are a person of infinite worth and as such you can exercise influence all around you.” 

     “We’re trying to create a more, a more just society. And how do you do that? Well you cannot do it if you exaggerate the animosities…So nonviolence has the—had the philosophy that when all of the, when this battle is over we expect to be able to live side by side, our children go to the same schools.”

     “Well my practice has been to obey Jesus at that point turn the other cheek. Well, people say well that’s passive but it’s not passive, it’s a very—it’s psychologically it is an extreme weapon. I turn the other cheek… So nonviolence does what Richard Gregg said, wrote, rather it causes people to do, be engaged in moral jiu-jitsu. They expect from you the hostile response that is conventional. They don’t get that, they get respect and they get resistance and that turns them upside down. It is like the art of—of jiu-jitsu, where you use the opponent’s strength against him”

In 1962 Lawson’s Nonviolence resistance continued to inform important movements in Los Angeles. In 1974, Lawson moved to Los Angeles and began a 25 year turn as the pastor of Holman United Methodist Church. According to Kent Wong (2022), “in Los Angeles, he helped to launch civil rights, peace, labor, and immigrant rights campaigns. His work with Black, Brown Asian, and white hotel and service workers helped to build one of the strongest organized labor and immigrant rights movements in the United States today.” He opposed the Vietnam war and continued to oppose U.S. military interventions. 

Lawson led various antinuclear efforts throughout the 1980s, opposed US imperialist/colonialist policy in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. “As part of an interfaith task force on hunger, Lawson helped organize the Adams-Vermont farmers’ market to bring fresh food to the South Los Angeles food desert” (Wong 2022, p120). 

In the early 1990s, Lawson advised the HERE Local 11 campaign at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, bringing the principles and tactics of nonviolence to LA union organizations in the hotel and custodial industries through the invitation of Maria Elena Durazo.

“In 1996, Lawson helped found Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice–Los Angeles, an interfaith organization focused on worker justice, which continues to mobilize the faith-based community to actively support immigrant and workers’ rights.” While unions have waned elsewhere, unions have grown stronger in Los Angeles. 

The “Holman group,” a young group of emerging leaders, met regularly with Lawson as part of a study group. Members included Antonio Villaraigosa, Kent Wong, Gilbert Cedillo, Karen Bass, Anthony Thigben, and Maria Elena Durazo.  

Sources:

Lawson, James M., Jr. (2022). Revolutionary NonViolence 

Lawson, James, M., Jr. (Ed.) (2016). Nonviolence and Social Movements: The Teachings of Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr.