03/01/2026
Born in September 1928, James Lawson was a Methodist minister and civil rights activist. His father and grandfather were also Methodist pastors. When he was drafted for the Korean War, he refused and served in prison for 13 months for draft evasion. After getting a degree in sociology from Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio he served as a missionary in Nagpur, India. There he studied Satyagraha, a form of nonviolent resistance taught by Gandhi.
After returning from India, he attended Oberlin College in Ohio where Lawson was introduced to Martin Luther King, Jr. They continued to be colleagues until King’s death. After Oberlin he continued his studies at Vanderbilt University, while also serving as a campus minister at a nearby black college. In Nashville, he began teaching nonviolent protest techniques (students included Diane Nash, John Lewis, James Bevel, and Marion Barry), then led sit-ins in downtown stores in Nashville to challenge segregation. Later he helped organize and participate in the freedom rides from Alabama to Mississippi.
In 1962, Lawson became pastor of Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He continued to work for civil rights, and in 1968, he served as the chair of the strike committed for the black sanitation workers. Lawson invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis. It was there that King delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech and was later assassinated.
In 1974, Lawson was appointed to Holman UMC in Los Angeles. He continued his pastorate there until he retired in 1999. While there he continued to organize, preach, and teach at several universities and churches throughout the country. While he continued his civil rights work, he also was active in workers rights, economic justice, reproductive choice and gay rights. He believed that all of these struggles were connected and that his faith was the core value for which he advocated. He died in June 2024.
