Architect of Non-Violence: What Rev. James Lawson has to say on today’s Black Lives Matter movement

Rev. James Lawson and his friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bonded over the use of non-violence as a way to bring about change.

The recent deaths of black men and women at the hands of police officers and others stirred emotions and ignited protests for a change. These protests are built on the backs of those demonstrations from the civil rights movement.

Stephanie Scurlock met one-on-one with the man known as the architect of the non-violent protest in this country to get his take on what he’s seeing today.

“I started working with Dr. King in January of 1958, and was with him in the Memphis campaign which he participated in, and was with him three or four, six hours of the day of his assassination, April the 4th, 1968,” Lawson said.

Lawson strategized and trained young protesters for peaceful demonstrations like the sit-ins at Nashville lunch counters — demonstrations that led to desegregating downtowns throughout America.

“In those workshops, I tried to cover many of the subject matters of nonviolence and the tactics of nonviolence, and I also tried to help people prepare themselves to face name-calling, cursing, and actual violence,” he said.