Remembering Civil Rights Leader and Advocate for Justice Rev. James M. Lawson Jr.

Sojourner Truth Radio

The Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., a key player in the Civil Rights and Labor Movements and a close advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., passed away last week at the age of 95. Lawson was a proponent of non-violent direct action as a means for social, political and economic change. His teachings were instrumental in the strategy and execution of non-violent Civil Rights-era protests in the American South. He also played crucial leadership and advisory roles in labor movements across the US, including the Memphis sanitation workers strike of 1968 and the Justice for Janitors campaign in Los Angeles.