Editor's Note: The Reverend James Lawson passed away June 9, 2024, in Los Angeles at the age of 95. One of the most prominent leaders of the American civil right movement, he was featured in a story published in our April 2008 issue, "Ten Civil Rights Pioneers Recall the Tumultuous Events of April 1968." What follows is the conversation the Rev. Lawson had with our managing editor, Frank Murtaugh.
The civil rights struggle in Memphis during the late 1960s is usually defined by two names: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the world-famous practitioner of nonviolent protests, and Henry Loeb, the stubborn mayor who opposed him during the sanitation workers' strike.
But many others — men and women, white and black — played key roles in the battle for human dignity. Forty years have passed, but their words and memories remain as strong and relevant as they were during 1968. While most of us are merely passive readers of history, these brave men and women actually helped change it. They are the true pioneers of the civil rights movement in America.
James Lawson
An invitation from James Lawson brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis in 1968 to lend his support to the striking sanitation workers. At the time Lawson was pastor of Centenary Methodist Church here. Educated at Oberlin College in Ohio, he mentored many leaders of the civil rights movement, starting during his days at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt for his involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an act for which the university formally apologized at its 2006 graduation ceremony. He lives in Nashville.
Rev. Lawson: "It would be helpful to get the story correct in Memphis. It's strange how often something like that piece of history doesn't seem to get straightened out. The story of Martin's coming to Memphis probably began on February 23, 1968, when the police used Mace to break up a peaceful march [in downtown Memphis]. A nonthreatening, peaceful march with from 900 to 1,300 of us, from the convention auditorium on Main Street to Mason Temple. But the police broke up that march without provocation.
The City Council had promised there would be a discussion of settling the [sanitation workers'] strike at City Hall that day. When we got to City Hall, they informed us that the meeting would be called at [Ellis] auditorium. So we changed our route, and got to the auditorium. They were going to hold the meeting there because it was a much larger site, and a larger crowd could be in the auditorium. [The council members] came out on stage, they had a very brief meeting, in which a motion was made — to everyone's surprise — to leave it in the hands of the mayor to settle the strike. The council would stay out of it. The motion was seconded, the meeting was adjourned, and they turned off the lights . . . and left. They didn't have any discussion with our leadership. Bedlam sort of broke out.
When King and I talked, we were frank with each other. We had a great amount of commonality from the first time we shook hands. — Rev. James Lawson
When the bedlam broke out, I put forth all the aggression I could to call the meeting to order. I jumped on the stage and asked everyone to sit down, be calm, let's examine this, and see if we can come to a mutual understanding of what's happened and where we're going.
We got on the phone with commissioner Frank Holloman of the police and fire department and got him to agree to the march. It would be nonviolent and peaceful. We'd use one side of the street, and he said he'd provide some kind of police order.
Well, we didn't get far down the street before these police cars — all filled with men — came onto Main Street and immediately lined up on the street, alongside the march. There was no reason for that. No loud noise, no one threatening. It was a disciplined group of people. We had made no effort to stop trucks that were out picking up garbage. We were not going to do civil disobedience and stop trucks. These were fundamental decisions that had been made by our leadership.
One of the cars — behind me, in the middle of the street — started to press against people. About the third or fourth time this happened, some men put their hands on the cars. At that signal, the police poured out with Mace cans and proceeded to gas us. They had targets; some people got it brutally. They made arrests, saying some people provoked it. This was a lie.
The march broke up. People drifted away and went home. About 20 or 30 of us recovered from the gas as best we could and proceeded to walk to Mason Temple. As word got out about what had happened, a lot of preachers and community leaders came to join us. And there was a unanimous decision made: We now must intensify our support of the strike, and demand that city government respond appropriately. We would have a strategy committee, and I was named to that committee. I had to leave to make some hospital calls. Late that night, I was called and told I had been selected as chair of the strategy committee. I accepted that.
We would begin to invite national spokes-people to come and draw attention to the strike, to lift and inspire the strikers and the community. We named Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, Byard Ruston of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, and of course, we wanted to get Martin King there. We agreed that King would not be the first speaker, for strategic reasons. I was given the responsibility of contacting Dr. King.
We had worked together since 1957. I was a volunteer on [King's] staff, did some executive planning, attended some board meetings. He had heard about the strike and his immediate response was that it sounded like a major movement. And of course he would come. Knowing him, and knowing the pressures on his schedule, I told him to set the date, and we'd accommodate him. Just tell us when he can do it.
Some accounts pretend that he didn't want to come. If he didn't, he didn't tell me that. That's nonsense. When King and I talked, we were frank with each other. We had a great amount of commonality from the first time we shook hands. If other people had asked him to come before that time, he may have said he couldn't. But they were not official calls from the movement. The moment I began to brief him on what we were doing, he was all empathy. He said it was something he was a part of.
I had been with him on April 4th, the court day. We'd talked steadily since he arrived in Memphis. I spent the evening of the 3rd with him and [King's colleague] Ralph Abernathy. He insisted on the morning of the 4th that I come back by the motel and brief him on what [went] on in court. In the afternoon, I left him around 4.
All through that time, my wife and my family had made it part of our life that, no matter what went on, I somehow managed to get home close enough to 6, so I could sit down and eat with my family. I walked into the house about 20 minutes before 6. I greeted Dorothy in the kitchen and stood there, talking with her. [Not much later], I heard on a television — in the alcove where our sons were — say something about someone being shot. The writing that came on across the top of the set said Dr. King had been shot at the Lorraine. Dorothy and I quickly conferred and decided I needed to go to work.
I immediately went to WDIA, the radio station that served much of the black community. They put me on the air, and I called for calm, and continuing the movement no matter what we heard about King. While I was there, the ticker tape reported his death. — as told to Frank Murtaugh
