Council of Bishops
The United Methodist Church
For Immediate Release
June 11, 2024
UMC bishops mourning the death of Rev. James Lawson, a civil rights icon
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church is joining the world in mourning the death of Rev. James Morris Lawson Jr, a civil rights icon and United Methodist preacher, who passed away suddenly on Sunday, June 9, from cardiac arrest. He was 95.
Rev. Lawson was also a university professor, a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was a close adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who called him “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.”
Rev. Lawson would later serve as pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles for 25 years.
“As we mourn the passing of Rev. Lawson, we give thanks for how his love of God and his passion for justice, equality, and fairness have impacted many people’s lives and communities. Some of us would not be in the roles we serve today had it not been for such powerful leaders such as Rev. Lawson, who paved the way for us,” said Bishop Tracy S. Malone, the first Black woman to be president of the Council of Bishops.
James Lawson was born in Pennsylvania in 1928. His father and grandfather were Methodist ministers, and Lawson received his local preacher's license in 1947, the year he graduated from high school.
At his Methodist college in Ohio, he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), America's oldest pacifist organization. Through FOR, he was first exposed to the nonviolent teachings of Gandhi and fellow Black minister Howard Thurman.
After spending time in prison for refusing the Korean War draft, he obtained his B.A. in 1952, and spent the next three years as a campus minister and teacher at Hislop College in Nagpur, India. While in India, Lawson eagerly read of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the emerging nonviolent resistance movement back in the United States.
Rev. Lawson met King in 1957, after spending three years in India soaking up knowledge about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s independence movement. The two Black pastors who were just both 28 years old quickly bonded over their enthusiasm for the Indian leader’s ideas, and King urged Lawson to put them into action in the American South.
Rev. Lawson began holding seminars to train volunteers in Gandhian tactics of nonviolent direct action. James Lawson helped coordinate the Freedom Rides in 1961 and the Meredith March in 1966, and played a major role in the sanitation workers strike of 1968.
Rev. Lawson moved to Los Angeles in 1974 to be the pastor of Holman United Methodist Church. He spoke out against racism and challenged the cold war and U.S. military involvement throughout the world. Even after his retirement, Rev. Lawson continued to be an advocate for social justice and equality.
“The United Methodist Church will be forever blessed by the leadership and ministry of Rev. Lawson,” Bishop Malone said adding that, “we can imagine Jesus is welcoming Rev. Lawson with open arms, saying “well done, good and faithful servant.”
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Media Contact:
Rev. Dr. Maidstone Mulenga
Director of Communications
Council of Bishops
The United Methodist Church
(202) 748-5172
