James Lawson: giant of the US civil rights struggle
Strategist of non-violent action dies age 95
JAMES LAWSON, who died in June aged 95, was described by Martin Luther King Jnr as “the greatest teacher of non-violence in America.”
Best known for his activism during the US civil rights movement, Lawson travelled to the then segregated city of Nashville, Tennessee, in the late 1950s, after King implored him to join the struggle.
Heavily influenced by Gandhi and working as a field secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), he started running regular workshops on non-violence in a church basement, vowing to turn Nashville into a “laboratory for demonstrating non-violence.”
More from this author
IAN SINCLAIR tells the story of a small group of east London activists who took on and defeated a billion-dollar US corporation that wanted to build a giant sphere venue coated in gaudy LED lights
The media’s shocking lack of interest in US-British involvement in Syria means it has effectively been a secret war, argues IAN SINCLAIR
New releases from Ghais Guevara, Kim Deal and Hardwicke Circus
Ian Sinclair talks to BILL BREEDEN, a retired Unitarian Universalist minister living in southern Indiana, and a longstanding opponent of the death penalty in the United States
Similar stories
As we celebrate black history month, JENNY WOODLEY recommends an engaging survey of centuries of both injustice and resilience
IAN SINCLAIR mourns the end of the longstanding activist newspaper that proudly stood ‘For Revolutionary Nonviolence’