John Lewis & James Lawson in MLK50 Evening of Storytelling, April 4, 2018

Over fifty years ago, courageous men and women stepped forward to challenge the status quo and change an unjust society. On April 4, 2018, two warriors of the movement, John Lewis and James Lawson, answer the question “Where do we go from here?” while sharing their experiences in the fight for civil rights, and their hopes for the future during the MLK50 commemoration of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.
John Lewis, Often called “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced,” John Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls “The Beloved Community” in America. As a student at Fisk University, he organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. During the height of the Movement, Lewis was named Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he helped form. Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, he remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence.
John Lewis is the recipient of numerous awards from eminent national and international institutions, including the highest civilian honor granted by President Barack Obama, the Medal of Freedom, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, the President’s Medal of Georgetown University, the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the National Education Association Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award, and the only John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for Lifetime Achievement ever granted by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. He is the co-author of the National Book Award winning and #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel memoir trilogy MARCH, written with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell.
He passed away July 17, 2020.
James Lawson, A supporter of the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent protest, Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr. was one of the Civil Rights Movement’s leading theoreticians and tacticians in the African American struggle for freedom and equality in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1957, one of Lawson’s professors introduced him to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who urged him to move south and aid in the Civil Rights Movement. Heeding King’s advice, Lawson moved to Nashville, Tennessee and enrolled at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, where he served as the southern director for FOR and began hosting nonviolence training workshops for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There Lawson trained many of the future leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including James Bevel, Diane Nash, John Lewis, Bernard Lafayette, and Marion Barry.
In 1974, Lawson became pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, California, and continued his social activism on Palestinian and immigrant rights; gay and lesbian issues; the Iraq wars; and poverty. Rev. Lawson retired from Holman United Methodist Church in 1999.