Civil rights activist James Lawson met with students and faculty for a discussion Thursday afternoon, where he covered topics including his involvement in civil rights movements, religion, the future of civil justice and nonviolence.
Lawson has marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and helped organize lunch counter sit-ins with the Nashville Student Movement. Now, Vanderbilt, which once expelled Lawson because of his involvement with the sit-ins, has honored him by establishing the James M. Lawson Jr. Chair. Lawson currently works at Vanderbilt as a professor.
Rebekah Dietz, a third-year political science student, said she attended the discussion because she had enjoyed seeing Lawson, a former UCLA professor, speak when he was on campus before.
“I thought it would be interesting to see what he has to say again. He’s a really important figure,” she said.
African American studies graduate student Cait Rohn said she was drawn by Lawson’s experience as a distinguished civil rights activist. She said she hoped to hear his advice for the new generation of activists.
“I would be really interested to hear what he would suggest that we as students could do to further the civil rights project that he’s so famous for helping with,” she said before the discussion.
Lawson did address this question, advising student activists to think locally.
“Look at yourself and your campus and assess things that disturb you,” he said.
Then, students should pick one issue, research it, and develop a direct-action program to target it, he said.
“The best way to tap into student idealism is to get them to focus on the university,” he added.
He maintained that everyone has the capability to incite change.
“All great people say it’s lodged in any human being. It’s in the gift of life,” he said.
Lawson said his activism has helped define his life.
“My insisting that my society was wrong … has been one of my major reasons for being,” he said.
He has studied Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings, and said nonviolence, which he defined as both a political science and a brave alternative to violence, is an important principle in his work.
“At the heart, nonviolence is not for the cowardly or the fearful,” he said. “It’s not (going) along with George Bush and Bill Clinton and a host of others who go to war very quickly.”
He also said he believes nonviolence is a necessary strategy for change.
“(It is) the only way to create a community that is better than the community you’re trying to leave,” he said.
Lawson also advised respecting one’s opponents.
“Don’t imitate the enemy, but don’t marginalize the enemy as not being a human being,” he said.
Civil rights work is far from over, Lawson said. He said he sees today’s society as a racist one that sees people not as linked, but separate.
Lawson criticized both the Democratic and Republican parties, saying they both resort to violence.
“Our militarized society is a consequence of both parties deciding that the bomb is the way to control the world,” he said.
Twenty-first century civil rights movements will integrate more races and faiths than in the past, he said.
Lawson presented education as a solution to improving society, saying people should know what is going on in the U.S.
He said his decades of involvement in the United Methodist Church influenced his activism.
“Almost all of my work has come out of the understanding of the Gospel,” he said.
He said, as someone who has studied the Bible extensively, the Bible does not have all the answers either. He said Jesus asks more questions in the Bible than he answers.
He defined religion as more of a journey than a destination.
“Religion is about the authentic search for wholeness,” he said.
Lawson also gave a formal lecture Thursday night at the 2007 Thurgood Marshall Lecture and Dinner held in Covel Commons. He said he planned to talk about “moving ourselves from unknown peril to noble vision.”
Lawson said we must not depend on politicians and businesses to guide the United State’s future, but must develop a different set of values.
Jamel Greer, administrative coordinator for the African Student Union, said he appreciated the discussion.
“I think it was very interesting to … get an inside perspective,” he said of Lawson’s relayed experiences in civil rights movements.
Greer said ASU has emulated Lawson’s nonviolent tactics in its own activism.