James M. Lawson was a key ally to Martin Luther King Jr. and also an important theoretician and practitioner of nonviolent protest. After briefly summarizing his childhood in Pennsylvania, Lawson describes how he became involved with the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen through activist preacher Will D. Campbell. Lawson's activism began during his time in Nashville, Tennessee. He relates how the Fisk and Vanderbilt students learned nonviolent protest, and describes how he helped organize and execute the Nashville sit-ins. Lawson devotes much of the interview to discussions of his relationship with various civil rights activists, including Kelly Miller Smith, Nelle Morton, Myles Horton, James Dombrowski, and James Holloway. Though Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt because of his involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and his participation in the sit-ins, he remembers that several of the faculty members offered him a great amount of personal support. He also reconciled with some of his opponents later in life. Lawson closes the interview by asserting that the actions of the 1950s and 1960s emerged from the union and labor rights movements of the 1930s and 1940s.

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Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 19, 2008).

Interview participants: James Lawson, interviewee; Dallas A. Blanchard, interviewer.

Duration: 00:42:11.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Kristin Shaffer. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection.