Professor Lawson, I Presume?

In February 1960 Jim Lawson helped to lead students in Nashville, Tennessee in civil rights protest that helped to shape a generation. The Nashville Movement was arguably the most vibrant local Civil Rights Movement in any American city, and its successes can largely be attributed to Lawson, who helped to shape a generation, including Diane Nash and James Bevel, through his commitment to, understanding of, and passion for social justice. His actions aroused the ire of the conservative university board members at Vanderbilt University where he was a divinity school student. They asked him to withdraw from school. When he refused, they had him expelled.

A great deal of Lawson's appeal and charisma came from his capacity to teach. he taught students about the history of nonviolence. He taught them the techniques that helped to revolutionize the Movement. And he taught them how to carry themselves with humble dignity, to have self-respect, and to stand up for something larger than themselves. Now Lawson finds himself teaching at Vandy, the place that once turned him into a pariah. Vanderbilt has hired Lawson on as a visiting professor in the city where he taught so many such important and far-reaching lessons.

I have gotten to know Lawson's good works well as I have progressed on my manuscript on the Freedom Rides. The Nashville Movement proves vital in the telling of that story, and Lawson is among the vital figures in Nashville. This wonderful denouement, which the New York Times story tells well, is yet another story symbolizing the attempts at reconciliation going on across the new New South.