The Rev. James Lawson Jr. has died at 95, civil rights leader’s family says

By ADRIAN SAINZ
Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The Rev. James Lawson Jr., has died.  His family said Monday that Lawson died peacefully on Sunday. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called Lawson “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Lawson and King were both 28 years old when they bonded over the ideas of Indian leader Mohandas Ghandi. Lawson schooled civil rights activists to withstand brutal treatment from white authorities. He shaped the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to organize the sit-in movement, and he organized the sanitation workers strike that brought King to Memphis. Lawson said a lifetime after King’s assassination that he was still anxious and frustrated, because their work remains unfinished.