Reverend James Lawson, National Civil Rights Museum Icon Dies

The National Civil Rights Museum is deeply saddened by the passing of civil rights philosopher and strategist, Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr. Participating in several museum events and programs, Rev. Lawson has been a lifelong mentor of the movement and among a panel of respected scholars for the National Civil Rights Museum.  He is one of the Museum’s 2011 Freedom Award Icon of the Civil Rights Movement honorees.  In recent years, Rev. Lawson would join the National Civil Rights Museum in illuminating the legacy of Dr. King during April 4 commemoration. He paired with civil rights activist John Lewis in the milestone MLK50 Evening of Storytelling Symposium in 2018. A supporter of the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent protest, Rev. Lawson was one of the Civil Rights Movement’s leading theoreticians and tacticians in the African American struggle for freedom and equality in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1957, one of Lawson’s professors introduced him to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who urged him to move south and aid in the Civil Rights Movement. Heeding King’s advice, Lawson moved to Nashville, Tennessee and enrolled at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, where he served as the southern director for Fellowship...