James M. Lawson Jr., who died last week, was a legendary hero of the civil rights movement; the pastor, for 25 years, of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles; and, in the words of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, “a man who changed history.”
But to me, Jim Lawson was, first and foremost, an incredible teacher.
I met Jim when I was hired as a producer and co-host of his national cable television talk show, “Lawson Live,” for a decade starting in 1995. Perhaps we were an unlikely couple: he was a Christian minister, I was a We practiced Buddhism and were separated by generations. However, time and time again throughout our long friendship, it was he who expanded my thinking.
Take the time we were preparing for a program we had roughly titled “Whatever Happened to the Civil Rights Movement?”
Jim said, “Don't call it that.”
I was confused. “What else should I call it?” I asked.
“Call it the justice movement,” he said, because what was at stake in the 1960s went far beyond civil rights.
He cited the goal of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was to “save the soul of America.” The boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom rides were aimed at segregation and voting rights, but in Jim's view, their deeper purpose was to challenge the kind of toxic thinking that devalued human beings to the point that genocide , slavery and, later, Jim Crow laws were possible.
He was a literal teacher in those years, training a generation of justice movement activists in civil disobedience. He went to prison rather than be drafted to fight in the Korean War, and went to India to study Gandhian nonviolence so he could bring his strategies to the United States. When we watched Lawson and his students man lunch counters in the South, they saw discipline in the face of danger, crucially grounded in the philosophy of nonviolence.
Instead of giving in to anger, he insisted, we should respect the inherent dignity and nobility of those with whom we disagree. We must listen. We must make connections rather than instigate separation, recognizing that violent thoughts, words, and actions only incite more violence. He recounted her own experience with a young man who spat at her during a protest. Jim wiped his face and asked the young man about his motorcycle. He started a conversation; conflict was avoided.
That type of respectful encounter, for Jim, was the only path that made transformation (changing hearts and minds) possible. When you face anger with grace, he explained to me and other interviewers, you can see with your own eyes a person's “conversion,” a change “as if walking from darkness to light.”
Jim believed that “beloved community” could be achieved. He argued that the riots we witnessed in the United States were evidence of the “poisons of racism, sexism, violence and plantation capitalism.” However, as white supremacists showed their faces publicly and polls indicated that people were disheartened by race relations, he speculated that through the tumult, “perhaps we are actually witnessing the unraveling of American apartheid.” He warned it would be a “complicated issue” because so few leaders seemed willing to make a change.
Jim did not doubt the power of a person's positive legacy. He never met my father-in-law, but when my husband's father died, he asked me if he could attend the service in Pittsburgh. After he arrived, he gathered information from family and friends, and when he spoke at the service, he called my father-in-law's six grandchildren to their feet. Jim told them that he had discovered that his grandfather lived by simple values: being a good human being, protecting his family and working for the betterment of his community. Would they follow in his grandfather's footsteps? They agree.
Finally, Jim taught me what authenticity looks like when no one is looking. When my mother was in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital, he visited her bedside regularly and sat with her at night whenever he could. We only found out about this kind act after her death. He had quietly become her shepherd in her time of need. That was the kind of person he was.
How should we honor a man who changed history? Emulating his courage, passion for truth and insistence on justice and peace. “I know,” Jim said, “negative forces cannot prevail.” In these days of worry and fear, his life of action and optimism can teach us all.
Bonnie Boswell is executive producer and reporter. “Bonnie Boswell Reports” is the introduction to “PBS Newshour” on PBS SoCal and on PBS.org.
