Random House USA Inc Nonviolent: My Life of Resistance, Agitation, and Love

"Throughout his rich life, Rev. Lawson worked to dismantle racial, social, and economic injustice. Dr. King called Rev. Lawson, "the leading strategist and theorist of nonviolence in the world." This vital, first-person account portrays Rev. Lawson engaged in galvanizing and often harrowing campaigns of nonviolent direct action-a radical, disciplined, far-reaching method of redemptive revolution centered in love and moral clarity. Rev. Lawson's story spans his more than nine decades, as well as his abolitionist heritage. While in college, he served prison time for resisting the Korean War daft. Later, he traveled to India and Africa, where he immersed himself in Gandhi's philosophy and tactics and met with emerging African independence leaders. In 1957, Dr. King urged Lawson to "come South now," and a historic solidarity was born. Rev. Lawson was vital to desegregating downtown Nashville in the early 1960s. He trained the Little Rock Nine, the Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteers, and countless other civil rights foot soldiers. He co-led the 1963 Birmingham campaign, the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear, and the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike. Throughout his life he stood up to two particularly pervasive forms of violence in the United States: police brutality and what he called plantation capitalism. After moving to Los Angeles in the 1970s, he continued the quest for economic and racial equity, and for women's and LGBTQ+ rights. Well into the twenty-first century, he helped foster a more inclusive labor movement and an enduring immigrant rights movement"-- Provided by publisher. The posthumous memoir of Rev. James Lawson Jr., peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mentor to Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders, and a principal architect of a nonviolent resistance movement that changed the world.“This book is a gift to be treasured, from a man who has already given so much.”—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of King: A LifeRev. Lawson was one of the most influential yet unheralded heroes of the civil rights era. He rose as a strategist, teacher, and organizer in pivotal campaigns on the national stage against racial and economic injustice.Lawson’s memoir spans 95 years, but it begins far from the spotlight in a large, working-class Ohio family. The son and grandson of Methodist ministers, he receives his license to preach before graduating from high school.Lawson goes on to serve time in prison for refusing the Korean War draft, and learns from independence movements during three years in India and Africa. He then fortifies the principles of a new American Revolution when he teaches nonviolent direct action centered in love and moral clarity to the Little Rock Nine, the Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteers, and countless others. He also becomes a leader in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the 1963 Birmingham campaign, the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear, and the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike.Nonviolent delivers an intimate self-portrait of Lawson as a man who recognized the inherent dignity of everyone, and challenged all forms of violence, including police brutality, enforced poverty, and what he called plantation capitalism. It shows his quest for justice continuing in Los Angeles well into the 21st century, as he helped foster a more inclusive labor movement and an enduring immigrant rights movement.Nonviolent is a riveting historical narrative from a central figure in global liberation and a testament to compelling a nation to live up to its founding ideals of liberty and justice for all. Autorid: James Lawson, Emily Yellin