Steve Cohen: “This world lost one of its most outstanding citizens yesterday. Reverend James M. Lawson passed away at age 95. Reverend…”

“This world lost one of its most outstanding citizens yesterday. Reverend James M. Lawson passed away at age 95. Reverend Lawson was one of the architects of the civil rights movement in our country that brought rights to African Americans and others. He was the architect of Dr. King's practice of nonviolence. He went to India, and he studied what Mahatma Gandhi had done in India to bring about rights in India. Dr. King adopted that and made him the person in charge of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's nonviolence division. He marched in Selma with John Lewis, and both were beaten for trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama. He was in Memphis as a minister in 1968 when the sanitation workers went on strike, the ``I Am A Man'' campaign. He encouraged Dr. King to come to Memphis, which he did, which resulted in Dr. King's assassination in Memphis on April 4. Reverend Lawson was a steadfast supporter of civil rights. He was against war, against the Vietnam war. He was for gay rights, for labor, and for progress in this country. He was a significant human being who did much for this world, and we will miss his opportunities to share and make us a better, a more perfect Union. His was a life well-lived. ____________________”