Support UM News on World Press Freedom Day: Give to help sustain and expand the storytelling capacity of UM News. Your donation today will transform information into inspiration and ensure we can continue sharing stories of God’s work in the world through The UMC. Help us reach our $10,000 goal and keep this vital ministry fair, faithful, trusted and free for all!

Lawson: Black Lives Matter shows need for change

A great social awakening that started with the civil rights movement is gaining strength today with the Black Lives Matter movement, said the Rev. James Lawson, a United Methodist pastor who the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.”

Missing from today's activism, however, is the strategy of nonviolence, he said.

Lawson, the son and grandson of Methodist pastors, received his local preacher's license in 1947 when he graduated from high school. He was introduced to the nonviolence teachings of Gandhi when he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, America's oldest pacifist organization, during his college days. He spent three years in India as a missionary.

Lawson introduced the principles of Gandhian nonviolence to King and other leaders of the 1960's civil rights movement.

“BLM (Black Lives Matter) is exposing still another change in the movement towards our future because the issue of police brutality and killing is the issue of slavery. It's the issue of the lynchings of the 20th century for which we have more than 6,000 documented experiences. It is the issue of deaths that occur in jails that are called suicide, but they are beatings and killings.”

Toward a nonviolent nation

Lawson's life work has been to create a nonviolent nation.

“I maintain the continuance of the nonviolence movement that Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sparked in December 1955,” he said.

But his dream is still far from becoming reality, he added.

“Churches and synagogues and temples have not yet decided we have enough violence in our country and in our world so they have not yet decided to un-bless violence and war.”

He pointed to domestic violence, verbal abuse, bullying of people of different races or cultures or people who have different sexual orientations from heterosexuals, as examples of the type of violence many religious groups condone.

Lawson spoke to United Methodist News Service while he was in Clinton, Tennessee participating in the Children Defense Fund's Proctor Institute, held on a farm once owned by Alex Haley, the author of “Roots.”

He is a consultant for the Children's Defense Fund and has been a part of the annual Proctor Institute for several years. The 2016 lectures were held July 18-22 with the theme, “Praying with Our Feet: Pursuing Justice for Children from the Sanctuary to the Street.”

The Children's Defense Fund and United Methodist Women are two of the oldest agencies working to make children the center of policy and practice in government, he said.

“Because I'm convinced, Gandhi was convinced … the agenda of the human race is an agenda different from the power brokers who have lived in every generation and in every century.”

Power brokers want domination, wealth and control, Lawson pointed out.

“But we, the people, have never deviated from our agenda, which is the agenda of taking care of our children and our families, influencing their lives, nurturing them, sustaining them, doing the work of the family and the home, caring for our immediate environment.”

Going the wrong way

In Lawson's opinion, “More people today are more aware than ever before that our society is moving in the wrong directions.”

He is convinced that awareness helped elect the first black president, President Barack Obama, in 2008.

Obama formed The White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing in the wake of officer-involved killings of black men.

Black Lives Matters can count that as a major accomplishment, Lawson said.

“Because the major thing that happens in the nation so often is when people raise an issue of concern that is affecting the lives of millions so often it is always passed over and forgotten instantly,” he said. “We do not have a sense in the U.S. today that many of our ailments are curable.”

The black community is now saying those killings are unjustified. But others must also become convinced, he said. “In some ways you have to be patient to allow history to take its time to get you to the point where you want to do something.”

Several years of nonviolence campaign precipitated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“We in the King movement knew we were a movement seeking to help this country move into becoming a democratic society with equality and liberty and justice for all.”

Put on the right path

At age 87, Lawson is still guided by a lesson he learned when he was in grade school.

He had his first encounter with racism on a street in Ohio. A young white child sitting in a car leaned out the window and hurled the 'N' word at him.

“I went over and slapped the boy and went on home,” he said. He sat down at the kitchen table, his mother was working on dinner, and he told her about the incident.

“Without turning to me she said, 'Jimmy, what good did that do?'”

On that afternoon, his mother, Philane May Cover, gave her son a lesson he has never forgotten about what it means to be a child of God, loved by Jesus. She told her young son that name-calling could not possibly harm him.

“And her last sentence was, 'Jimmy, there must be a better way.' And so in many ways that's the pivotal event of my life,” Lawson said.

Appeal of John Wesley

Lawson still teaches nonviolence at the University of California, Los Angeles and at California State University in Northridge. He lives in Los Angeles where he is emeritus pastor of Holman United Methodist Church.

He has served churches in Ohio, Tennessee and Los Angeles. He said his ministry with those churches confirmed his walk with God and convinced him of the power of the pastor in the congregation.

“I'm convinced that John Wesley offered a form a Christianity that was far more relevant to people than what little I know about Christianity of that time,” he said.

“I think that his emphasis upon social holiness, upon religion which is both personal and social, his emphasis on a religion that was of the mind as well as of the Scriptures and as well as of the tradition, that continues to appeal to me and attract me.

“So from my perspective Methodism at its best is a form of Christianity that it seems to me is essential for a democratic society.”

Gilbert is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected].


Like what you're reading? Support the ministry of UM News! Your support ensures the latest denominational news, dynamic stories and informative articles will continue to connect our global community. Make a tax-deductible donation at ResourceUMC.org/GiveUMCom.

Sign up for our newsletter!

Subscribe Now
Faith Stories
The Rev. Dr. Richard Huskey died one day after being ordained an elder in full connection in The United Methodist Church. He is pictured at left upon his seminary graduation in 1974. At center, Huskey attends a 1977 rally to support an ordinance that banned discrimination in employment and housing in St. Paul, Minn. He had selected the photo to represent his time in ministry. At right is Huskey in 2014. Photos are courtesy of Huskey; the 2014 photo is via the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network.

LGBTQ activist ordained on deathbed

In an emotional finish worthy of Hollywood, the Rev. Dr. Rick Huskey was ordained on his deathbed after waiting since the 1970s for The United Methodist Church to allow the ordination of openly gay people.
Faith Stories
Ophelia Hu Kinney. Photo courtesy of the author.

Affirmation at last: Remembering the Rev. Dr. Rick Huskey

The physician and justice advocate mobilized the pain of exclusion to blaze a trail for LGBTQ United Methodists.
Immigration
A National Guardsman stands watch at a June 10 prayer vigil organized by the United Methodist-founded Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in downtown Los Angeles. The participants placed in front of him a poster in Spanish calling for peace, love and equality and asking for support. United Methodists across the Los Angeles area are working to stand up for immigrant rights while trying to de-escalate a tense situation as the Trump administration has deployed National Guard troops and Marines to quell protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Photo courtesy of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

Working for immigrant rights and peace in LA

United Methodists in the Los Angeles area are advocating for immigrants while trying to de-escalate a tense situation after President Trump’s deployment of troops to quell anti-ICE protests.

United Methodist Communications is an agency of The United Methodist Church

©2025 United Methodist Communications. All Rights Reserved