Soul Force

Emily Yellin discusses the memoir of the late Rev. James Lawson, “the architect of the nonviolent movement in America”

In his last and greatest sermon, on April 3, 1968, at Mason Temple in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. applauded his fellow minister, James Lawson. “He’s been to jail for struggling,” said King. “He’s been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggle. But he’s still going on, fighting for the rights of his people.” In Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love, Lawson recounts a life fighting for civil rights. Along the way, he shaped many of the movement’s key struggles, from Little Rock to Nashville to Birmingham to Memphis.

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