Willa Needham | September 20, 2024

In 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously declared September 22 to be “Reverend James Lawson Jr. Day” in Los Angeles County, honoring the Rev. Lawson’s lifelong devotion to civil justice and his leadership in movements to advance human rights.

As we approach the anniversary of this date, we reflect on the legacy and profound impact of Reverend James Lawson Jr., who passed away in June.

Once referred to as the “leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence” by his close colleague and friend Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Lawson is credited with the elevation of nonviolent philosophy and direct action tactics to achieve social change. 

Rev. Lawson was a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement and instrumental in several of the most pivotal campaigns to end racial segregation in the United States, including the Nashville sit-ins and Freedom Rides. He was also deeply engaged with the labor movement, providing leadership for significant campaigns like the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike in 1968. 

Rev. Lawson later relocated to Los Angeles, where he helped transform the regional labor movement with his strategies and mentorship of countless activists. He advised the Los Angeles “living wage” movement for hotel and airport workers in the early 2000s, organizing critical actions such as sit-ins and hunger strikes. The nonviolent tactics popularized by Rev. Lawson in Los Angeles during this era continue to be utilized in the city today. 

For over 20 years, Rev. Lawson co-taught a course on nonviolence at UCLA with Kent Wong, former UCLA Labor Center Director and current director for labor and community partnerships. In 2018, Rev. Lawson was awarded the UCLA Medal, the campus’s highest honor, for his work in the community. In recognition of his decades-long commitment to the labor movement in Los Angeles, in 2021 the UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building was officially designated the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center. 

Rev. Lawson’s teachings at UCLA and beyond have inspired generations of students and activists to lead with love and act with strategy to create a more just world. Today, his work continues through the UCLA Labor Center’s James Lawson Jr./Dolores Huerta Nonviolence Project, which brings nonviolent curriculums to Los Angeles high schools, and in the UCLA course “Nonviolence and Social Movements,” which will be offered by the labor studies program in the coming winter quarter. Virtual lectures from the class, recorded in 2021, are available for free online.