Community of Christ International Peace Award

2004 Recipient - Rev. James Lawson
View Rev. Lawson's Acceptance Address

“Jesus of Nazareth is my commitment,” said Rev. James Lawson during a phone conversation with Peace and Justice Ministries coordinator Andrew Bolton on June 9. Lawson felt a calling that began in childhood and continued to be illuminated over the following years. “In high school I began to say that I planned to follow Jesus,” Lawson continued. “That, for me, is still alive. That’s still the central, organizing spirituality in my life--the striving after Jesus, to become fully taught by Jesus.”

Lawson will be honored with the Community of Christ International Peace Award during the 2004 Peace Colloquy, themed “All in God’s Image: Ethnicity, Religion, Power, and Privilege.” Deemed by Martin Luther King Jr. as “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world,” Lawson has spent his life pursuing racial and economic justice through nonviolent means as a leader in the United States civil rights movement and a social justice advocate. This commitment is informed and bolstered by his role as a minister.

Nonviolent Action for Civil Rights
In his teen years, Lawson became aware of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi and his theory of nonviolence. Gandhi’s writings had a strong impact on Lawson’s understanding of how best to battle racism as a follower of Jesus. He said, “I did become persuaded that nonviolence was the key for black people overturning segregation in the United States, especially as introduced by Gandhi, but also as confirmed by various efforts in the ’40s and ’50s to resist and oppose Jim Crow laws and practice.”

Lawson has long opposed war, violence, and militarism. As a conscientious objector of the Korean War, he was imprisoned in 1951 after refusing to participate in the draft. He later traveled to India as a Methodist missionary before returning to the United States.

Bolton asked, “How did you get involved in the civil rights movement?” Lawson recalled it as a “long story.” He said, “From a very early age I was involved in resisting prejudice and racism…from at least my high school days-resisting also religious bigotry, narrow mindedness of various kinds.”

Lawson was serving as a Methodist minister in Ohio when he met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957. “By the time I shook Dr. King’s hand, I had already had probably ten to fifteen years of experience, of study and reading, and action,” he said.

Of this first meeting, Lawson said, “We shared views and shared something of our lives, and I shared with him the fact that I thought one day I would move south. King said, ‘Don’t wait. Come now. We need you now.’” This prompted then-30-year-old Lawson’s 1958 move to Nashville, Tennessee.

There, Lawson led sit-ins aimed at desegregating the city’s lunch counters. Months of planning and preparation were carried out during evening workshops on nonviolent action and sit-in logistics. The resistors persevered over several weeks. Many were arrested. Eventually hundreds marched to meet with the mayor, who verified that segregation of the lunch counters was not right.

In 1961, Lawson helped coordinate the Freedom Rides, and in 1966, the Meredith March. In 1968, King joined Lawson in Memphis, Tennessee, where Lawson was chair of the strategy committee for the sanitation worker strike. They met in King’s motel room on April 4. Just 40 to 60 minutes after Lawson departed, King was assassinated. Bolton asked, “What was it like for you when he was shot?” Lawson responded, “Having worked with him every year between ’58 and ’68, it, of course, was a personal grief. At the same time, however, we were in the midst of a major nonviolent campaign, and I had to take primary responsibility for seeing to it that his assassination would not derail the effort. So I spent a major portion of my time from that evening on until it was settled [successfully] on April 16, working to strengthen the strike, increase the mobilization in the community, and support the workers in every way possible.”

Lawson learned from King that “a common theme in black literature, preaching, and teaching is that the nation has never been a nation for black people.” Using his own words, Lawson articulated that “[the United States] has always been tyrannical toward black people…authoritarian, always oppressive.” He notes that many people have found ways to escape this inherent oppression, “especially internally.” Ultimately, Lawson asserts that everything from the economic institution of slavery, which persisted for 250 years, to Jim Crow laws, which were on the books through the 1960s, to the racism that persists today “has been a denial of the United States Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution.” These concerns are closely linked with the economic justice issues on which Lawson’s contemporary efforts focus.

Sowing the Seeds of Spiritual and Moral Revolution
In 1974, Lawson moved to Los Angeles, California, “out of a deep sense that I was being called to another congregation, another city.” He became pastor of Holman United Methodist Church, the largest United Methodist congregation in Los Angeles. After serving 25 years, Lawson retired from the pulpit in 1999. His schedule remains very full. Lawson said, “I’ve continued to be engaged in organizing and mobilizing people. So I’ve been a part of a great many varied demonstrations and efforts of many kinds.” He says that economic justice is the priority for him today “because injustice-economic injustice and structural poverty-are integral to racism and before the racism, slavery.”

Lawson is chair of the Living Wage Movement in Los Angeles. “It’s an issue to which I’m greatly committed because it is about economic justice, and I’m convinced that working people need to be united in strong democratic organizations called unions as a major way by which workers and the workplace can achieve equity and justice and remuneration worthy of the work, and worthy of the human being,” he said. Lawson explained, “I have continued my work with the organizing of poor workers. I’ve done a lot of consulting and training of union organizers and union people who are working primarily with service workers-workers who make poverty wages for the most part.”

Bolton clarified, “By working with unions and empowering workers to find their voice, would you say you’re building the stage for their mass action?” Lawson replied, “Yes…I consider myself these days…sowing the seeds of spiritual and moral revolution that will one day cause and ignite a nonviolent movement that will overshadow the movements of the past.” Bolton said, “We hope you’ll touch some of our people, and we can be allies in that.”

Other facets of Lawson’s work include serving as chair of the board of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. He teaches Nonviolent Struggle and Social Movements at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). Lawson is also president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization founded by King for nonviolent direct action.

Family Ties
Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1928. He was raised and educated primarily in Massillon, Ohio, where his father was a pastor. Bolton asked if he perceived having parents who were immigrants as helpful “because they came from cultures that perhaps weren’t as racist, and they had good self-esteem.” Lawson affirmed and built upon this, saying, “Yes, I’m sure that that was a part of it, but I think the basic thing was that the reception in our home, in my family, was one that I think filled me with a sense of being-a sense of who I was.”

Lawson celebrated 45 years of marriage to Dorothy in July. “It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made,” he said. Immediately, he relinquished all credit for this decision. “Again, this is one of those major decisions I didn’t really make. I was led to it. I realized at the time it was the way God planned it for me,” said Lawson. Of Dorothy he said, “She’s proved to be, under every circumstance, the finest person I could possibly have, especially in the many moments of threat in our lives. She’s been a stalwart person of faith and confidence.”

The Lawsons have three sons and one granddaughter. “They’ve been a great help to me to become more human, more alive. I am challenged to love, to let my heart grow larger rather than shrivel up, become stagnant,” Lawson said.

Continuing Challenge
Lawson will speak on the evening he is honored with the Community of Christ International Peace Award. His talk promises to be challenging as he addresses the topic, “Lessons from the King Movement (1955-1972) for Zion in the Twenty-first Century.” Lawson admits that challenge is a consistent theme in his own life. “In some ways I’m astonished that biblically I’m still wrestling with so much of the gospel…that I’m wrestling so much with Jesus,” he said. It’s a challenge that sometimes surprises him. It’s a struggle Lawson said, “I didn’t anticipate it, because no one told me. I was shocked to recognize that at 75 I’m still wrestling.”

LIVE WEBCAST
Community of Christ International Peace Award Ceremony

Rev. James Lawson will be presented with the Community of Christ International Peace Award on November 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Temple. All are invited to this special worship service, which is part of the 2004 Peace Colloquy. This event will also be broadcast live via the Internet for our worldwide audience at www.CofChrist.org/peaceaward. 

The Community of Christ International Peace Award includes a $30,000 grant (funded by a grant from Bank of America), to be donated to the charitable peace, justice, or environmental organization of the recipient’s choice. Honorees also receive a sculpture created by Wyoming artist Gail Sundell. Each is made slightly different to honor the unique peacemaking contribution of the individual recipient.

The Community of Christ International Peace Award has been given annually (with the exception of 1996) since 1993 at Community of Christ world headquarters during significant events, including the annual , the biennial , and the International Youth Forum (held every four years).

In terms of cash value, the 1999 Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict placed the Community of Christ International Peace Award among the top 20 international, nongovernmental peace awards in the world (in a list topped by the Nobel Peace Prize) and among the top seven in the United States.

Recipients represent diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, and faith. The Community of Christ International Peace Award includes Rev. James Lawson, Jean Vanier, Ela Gandhi, Swanee G. Hunt, John Paul Lederach, Jane Goodall, Marie Fortune, Juan M. Flavier, Marian Wright Edelman, M. Scott Peck and Lily Peck, and Jehan Sadat.

For more information about the Community of Christ International Peace Award, visit www.CofChrist.org/peaceaward. For more about this year’s Peace Colloquy, go to www.CofChrist.org/peacecolloquy. 

As seen in the October 2004 Herald.  Used with permission.

-Kendra Friend reporting

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