In hindsight, concepts about nonviolence indeed have proven the most revolutionary ideas from the twentieth century. The century itself was marred by mass violence – two World Wars, communist revolutions, the invention of the atomic bomb, and a Cold War threatening imminent destruction. Yet nonviolence exploited its foothold. Mahatma Ghandi used nonviolence to lead India to independence from the British Empire. Polish protestors used nonviolence to usher in the fall of communism. And civil-rights protestors in the United States used nonviolence to force the destruction of Jim Crow’s oppression. In the latter movement, James Lawson was the leading teacher of those principles, and this book represents the best distillation of his teachings.
Lawson was exposed to principles of nonviolence while a student in college in Ohio. He was sent to prison for a time for not enrolling in the draft for the Korean War. He travelled to India where he saw firsthand the results of Ghandi’s nonviolence. After returning, Dr. Martin Luther King found out about his knowledge, and King strategized to use him in Nashville to replicate the Montgomery bus boycott.
Lawson enrolled at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School and taught principles of nonviolence to many in the Nashville community. They successfully desegregated downtown Nashville through nonviolent protests. University trustees, however, kicked Lawson out of Vanderbilt for usurping the law; in response, the dean of the Divinity School and eleven faculty resigned in protest. He eventually finished his degree at Boston University and assumed a pastoral position in Tennessee. For the rest of his life, he continued to teach principles of nonviolence to all and involved himself in nonviolent protests for injustices across the world.
Most in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s used nonviolence as a tool to achieve political ends. A minority’s violence against a majority simply would not work in the American context. For Lawson, though, nonviolence represented a deeper philosophical and religious value. This book describes that value in detail. He grounds the ethic theologically in Jesus Christ’s life and historically in successful protest movements.
Lawson died in 2024 after a long life. Vanderbilt eventually reconciled with him and celebrates their tie to him today. He was acclaimed as the leading evangelist of nonviolence in America. He served as a Methodist minister in Los Angeles and saw no conflict in that pastoral role and his globetrotting activism. This book encapsulates his thought and approach in his own words. It will serve as a guide to future generations. Though no activist, I appreciate seeing how this magnanimous teacher approached life and changed the world.
Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom
By James M. Lawson, Jr.
Copyright (c) 2022
University of California Press
ISBN13 9780520387843
Page Count: 140
Genre: Philosophy, Religion
www.amazon.com