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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview F-0029, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
James M. Lawson was a key ally to Martin Luther King, Jr., and also an important theoretician and practitioner of non-violent protest. After briefly summarizing his childhood in Pennsylvania, Lawson describes how he became involved with the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen through activist preacher Will D. Campbell. Lawson's activism began during his time in Nashville, Tennessee. He tells Blanchard about how the Fisk and Vanderbilt students learned non-violent protest, and describes how he helped organize and execute the Nashville sit-ins. Lawson devotes much of the interview to discussions of his relationship with various civil rights activists, including Kelly Miller Smith, Nelle Morton, Myles Horton, James Dombrowski, and James Holloway. Though Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt because of his involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and his participation in the sit-ins, he remembers that several of the faculty members offered him a great amount of personal support. He also reconciled with some of his opponents later in life. Lawson closes the interview by asserting that the actions of the 1950s and 1960s emerged from the union and labor rights movements of the 1930s and 1940s.
James M. Lawson was a key ally of Martin Luther King, Jr., and also an important theoretician and practitioner of non-violent protest. In this interview, he speaks about his relationship with some of the civil rights figures of the time, including Will Campbell, Kelly Miller Smith, Nelle Morton, Myles Horton, James Dombrowski, and James Holloway.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Hello.
Jim, this is Dallas Blanchard again.
Hey, Dallas.
Hey. How are you? Is this a convenient time?
Sure.
Good. I appreciate it. Is it all right with you if I tape this?
Of course.
All right, and I will send along a release for you to sign, for the University of North Carolina Library would like a copy of these tapes.
Uh, hu.
First, could you tell me where you were born and raised?
All right. I was born in the home of an AME Zion pastor in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, September 22, 1928.
OK. Then you were raised in Pennsylvania?
Essentially. However, I was raised in Northeast Ohio.
When did you first run into the Fellowship?
Of Reconciliation?
No, the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen.
Oh, the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. All right. That was in a . . . well see I'm not even sure, to be truthful. It would've been whenever, at about the time it was organized probably because initially it was not in place and Will Campbell created it partially as a vehicle for his own Ministry.
Right.
Let's see. In '57 he was NCC [National Council of Churches]. Let's see. How long did that go on?
That was into the early 60's, I think, or the late 50's.
Yeah. I think that office closed somewhere around '62 or '63. I'm not exactly sure, so it would be someplace in there then that Will organized the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen.
OK. Did you ever know Buck Kester?
Yes, as I recall I've met him, but I didn't really know him.
OK.
. . . to any depth.
Let's see. You weren't a member of Will's group. You weren't a member that was, there was an earlier group called the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen which was organized about 1934?
Uh ha.
And, kind of died out about 1957.
Right, I would imagine.
Did you attend the Conference of Human Relations and Religion that they had in Nashville in '57? Martin Luther King spoke at that.
Gosh, I do not remember. I was in Nashville in '57 and it's according when it was. Do you know when it was?
I don't know the exact date. I don't have that in front of me. I think it was in the fall of '57, but I'm not sure of that.
If it was in the fall of '57, I probably attended it.
OK. What other groups were you a member of around 1957?
OK. Of course, SCLC, Fellowship of Reconciliation . . .
OK.
Tennessee Council of Human Relations . . .
Uh ha.
Ah, now let me think what else. Of course, the National Christian Leadership would be SCLC affiliated.
Yeah.
I think that's about all.
OK. How did you get connected with the sit-ins in Nashville?
OK. Well, in '57 I became the Southern Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
OK.
It's in that relationship that I met Will and of course many others . . .
amm, and in going to, ahh, deciding to live in Nashville rather than in,
ah, Atlanta I had my choice as to where I could open, ah, could open the
office and all —— I chose Nashville because a variety of people were
saying, you know, Vanderbilt University would be a good spot to be
around, so and the net result was, that's where I settled, ah, and in
the process of my first immediate task, was, ah, doing workshops on
non-violence all around the South in the movement. As a consequence of
that, I determined that I should try to develop a model for the movement
to look at in which I would put into operation, ah, kind of a full
display of non-violent philosophy in action, amm, and that should be
done in Nashville. So we had already geared some workshops in Nashville
in 19 . . . the spring of, whatever, the spring of
OK.
So in February . . . We did testing in November, then workshops, followups . . . Then we were stopped by exams and whatnot. In any case, when February first came around, we were ready and we moved immediately.
Right, the Greensboro sit-in did precede what you did . . .
Did precede that public phase.
Yes.
But we had, we had already done not only preparation, but exploratory work on targets, practicing sending groups out to practice non-violence——not sitting continuously, but when they were trying instead to confront waiters and waitresses and if possible the managers and then leaving before arrest.
Oh, I see.
But that was all for the purpose of their training and discovering what was going on.
This testing phase started in the fall then?
Yeah. This started in November; it's November I'm pretty sure when we started the weekly forages of experimentation into a variety of lunch counters and restaurants.
OK.
Downtown Nashville.
You had some whites involved in that as well as blacks, right?
Now let me think about this. In the fall I am not positive, OK?
Uh ha.
I cannot be positive about that in the fall. I'm trying to remember if some of the exchange students at Fisk were involved and I'm also trying to remember if, if at that time, amm, I know we took visitors sometimes in some of that, cause we had a couple of church people from Africa touring and they went with a couple of our groups.
Uh ha.
And I can't recall if . . . I cannot recall if we had any whites considerably in that fall.
OK.
Paula Prod and a couple of exchange students did, were acting in the sit-in campaign in February but I can't remember if they were in the workshops in the fall or not.
OK. What was the role of Will Campbell in the sit-ins?
OK. Will organized what we called our observer groups.
Uh ha.
Stayed in the downtown area when we were there keepin' a running record of everything they saw.
Uh ha.
And Will quite specifically organized that and then also, of course, beyond that, was involved with the Human Relations Conference with other folk interpreting what we were doing.
OK. What was Everett Tilson's role?
This I do not remember for full. In early '60, but I would assume that he might've been one of those observers. I have to tell you I sort of did deliberately. In fact some of the folk at Vanderbilt sort of did not like my decision but I sort of deliberately did not include them in certain public phases for strategic reasons, namely that their presence would often further inflame things and make Vanderbilt more the target than our business downtown the target.
Uh ha.
So I quite deliberately low-keyed exposing Vanderbilt's students and people in at least the initial days of it, and then, also, the initially, the larger number of blacks, I mean the larger number of whites we used as witnesses and observers rather than as people sitting-in directly.
Right.
We used them in these other roles, and that again was a deliberate decision.
Uh ha.
For the purpose of court cases and the rest.
OK. What about Kelly Miller Smith?
Kelly Miller Smith was president of the National Christian Leadership Conference; so he was in on all the executive sessions and then, of course, became chairperson of our negotiating committee in the public phase of things. Became the chairperson of our negotiating committee.
Uh ha.
So his role and, of course many other roles, he was supportive, he offered to trust with us. His church was the headquarters, for the actual demonstrations. He helped to mobilize different units of the community, like the lawyers, the public officials, behind the whole thing.
OK. Would you react to some name for me?
OK.
Did you ever hear of J. C. Herrin?
Oh, yes. But I don't recall specifics.
OK. Charles Jones?
Oh, lordy. That's another problem ATTC name. That name. It's more problematic though because there was at least three Charles Jones.
OK.
One white, two blacks, who were involved in the struggle in different phases of different ways.
This one was a Presbyterian Minister over in, ah, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Yes. That's right. There was a black Presbyterian, too, Charles Jones.
Oh.
In North Carolina.
Yeah. He was a younger man. I can't remember details though.
OK. Ah, did you ever run into a Nell Morton?
Oh, Yes.
Do you recall how, where, and when?
Oh, lordy. That's a very difficult question because I can't remember precisely when and where because she has been a fairly long time in my life . . . in my student days as I remember.
Where was that?
Well, I was in Ohio at Baldwin-Wallace, but as I recall Nell Morton was in some of the National meetings I was into in North America and student things and that's where we first met but I do not know where this was. So she was one of those kind of people who, though I did not know her well, I knew her reputation: a person of courage and a person deeply committed to a racial justice and change, and then as a consequence of my meeting her, also becoming the draft resistor and whatnot in the '50's, she became one of the people who strongly supported my life ministry and witness, and still does. In fact, I was, I just talked with her back in September. She is retired out there at Claremont.
Yes, I know. I spent a couple of days with her last summer.
So . . .
I didn't realize you were out in Los Angeles or I would've seen you at that time if I could have.
Yeah. So, in fact, I was on TV in a run-in with Ed Robbs of the Institute of Religion and Race and she called me that afternoon to tell me how glad and pleased she was with what I did.
So she has continued to be that kind of motivator of mine.
Myles Horton?
Myles. Highlander School, and adult education, and, of course, a center where there could be multi-racial meetings. I did . . . I did some things with him at Highlander in the late '50's and '60's, then later on I was a member of his Board. Well you know he was one of the pioneers trying to move Tennessee and the South.
Jim Dombrowski?
OK. New Orleans. Again he was one of those folk who had a long career trying to bring about changes and was very, very supportive of the whole non-violent black movement.
Do you recall the way he supported it?
Beg pardon?
Do you recall any specific way he supported it?
Well, sure. Both Horton with his organization, but Dombrowski. I cannot remember that name of the group. I guess at different times I was part of his group, too. Gosh it went out of existence in the late '60's or early '70's. Ann Braden worked for him, Carl Braden. I can't recall even the blooming name of it, amm, yea, he, through that network that he tried to put together that was multi-racial, so with funds, with people who got involved with interpreting with the newsletter that used to report so many, many things and change, just a great variety of ways to support. Again, one of those whites, who had a very clear understanding of what it was all about and I think he had the confidence of a sizeable number of black people around the South. Myles would be in that category. Will Campbell would be in that category definitely.
Uh ha.
My experience . . .
James McBride Dabbs?
Knew him only from a distance. Southern, whatever it is, the Southern Regional Council, amm, South Carolina and a . . . No, I have met him a couple of times and been in some of the Southern Regional meetings with him. More from a distance. Of course, he would get one of those figures, he was very well honored among the people who knew him well for his prophetic position he took in support of change.
Howard Odom?
I may know the name, but I don't recall.
Ok. Gene Smathers?
I'd say the same.
Ok. Scotty Cowan?
No.
Warren Ashby?
I'm more familiar with that name, but I don't recall much.
Arthur Churchill?
No.
Jim Holloway?
Yes. I've met Jim a number of times. He was Southern Churchman Editor of
a
OK.
I guess Will and I also in Nashville . . . a couple of times I had lunch with him and Will.
OK. What can you tell me about Will Campbell? How would you characterize him?
OK. Well, I personally had almost complete confidence in Will. He is one of the people with whom I talked over a great, great variety of things. We not only . . . we traveled together at different times during the Little Rock crisis, for example, and the school situation, he and I, on two or three occasions went into Little Rock together and stayed together and worked together on various contacts. I was very active . . . '57, '58 in fact, Ernest Green and I, one of the school students, the first to graduate have been friends ever since because of my involvement with them.
Uh ha.
So I came to have a very, very high appreciation of Will. He, I think of
many of the people, took a position more theologically like my own,
namely the radical character of the scriptures: Loving the enemy,
turning the other cheek, care about the sinner and the oppressed and the
bruised and, of course, I carried that to the place where I recognized
the necessity of the transformation of the KKK member and the hard-nosed
segregationist and frequently in the hostility that I gained across the
years have always fought to see such persons in that light, so Will
probably more than anyone that I have met, specially in the white
community, came closer to my own biblical position on the revolutionary
character of the gospel. He and I didn't always agree
Thomas Kilgore?
Well, I've come to know Tom much better since I've come out to LA.
Uh ha.
He, for me, originally, he was the New York man, preacher, who backed FCLC and opened up our New York office, so I knew him more from that distance.
I see.
And from national conventions. We knew each other face to face on a basis under the consequences of board meetings and staff meetings and that sort of thing but still he was more of a distant figure. I knew of his very active support and fund-raising and like, but . . .
You hadn't know of him in a activist way in the South?
Yeah. I did not see him in the Southeast as an activist.
OK. Murray Branch?
I do not recall.
Ben Mays.
I'm sure I knew both Murray Branch and Ben Mays but I don't recall.
OK. Did you ever know Neal Hughley?
No.
OK. That about covers the names I have.
OK.
How would you characterize the Committee of Southern Churchmen as an organization?
Well, I really wasn't close to it except through Will, and I, I thought primarily as the vehicle that essentially Will formed and reorganized for the purpose of providing himself with a basic organizational leverage or platform to organize his ministries around. So that's really how I thought . . . I wasn't aware in those years in the '60's they had that many meetings. They did more relating to Will Campbell by phone calls and correspondence than they really did have that many meetings.
OK.
They sustained and supported his work and his philosophy. Of course, the magazine became fairly a prophetic voice, it seemed to me at least, but again, how widely circulated it was I don't know.
Uh ha, or to whom?
Yeah, or to whom. Right.
What about the faculty at Vanderbilt? Who gave you the greatest support there?
I suppose that's fairly hard to say. I would say though it would probably have been a combination of Everett Tillson and J. Robert Nelson.
OK.
Yeah. I would think I would say, yes, in fact I would definitely, just
simply definitely say it was those, those two would be the, the main
two. I had . . . J. Robert Nelson was someone that I admired, was or
OK.
From the faculty.
Did, was there anyone that surprised you with a lack of support?
I should also say I guess that Roger Shinn was my counselor there, my faculty counselor, and he was quite helpful and supportive at the times I had conferences with him. Bard Thompson and I became very close because I was very excited by his teaching.
Uh ha.
Also, and I think he had a very firm trust in me although we didn't even
know each other that well. I had never less than very firm trust in him,
I know. I guess the person that surprised me though in some ways, we did
get reconciled in 1970 and he surprised me, not because I knew him, but
because of his Old Testament reputation up to that time. I had him that
was Hyatt, who I understood from a variety of people, was quite negative
about my whole role. As I say, we got reconciled
Is there anyone in particular you think I should talk to, to understand the Committee of Southern Churchmen, other than Will?
Well, I would think Jim Holloway would be one.
Uh ha.
No, did not Beverly Asbury get active in that?
Yes, yes. He's on the executive committee now.
OK. Well, I would think Beverly would be somebody. Now another guy that probably you should talk to, Baxton Bryant.
Uh ha.
It occurs to me because I don't know if Baxton actually, I don't know if he was actually on their executive board or anything but he became the chairperson of the Tennessee Council on Human Relations, and he and Will got along very, very well, so you ought to talk to Baxton Bryant. He's in the, United Methodist Church Pastor in Dallas.
OK.
Texas.
I didn't realize he was pastoring there.
Yeah, he went back into pastoring several years ago.
Uh ha.
So you probably ought to talk to Baxton.
OK.
Now, let me think who else. Gosh, some of the stalwarts are now deceased. Just a moment, let me ask my wife Dorothy. Dorothy, come here a minute, please. Say, Dallas . . .
Yeah?
Do you have the people, the people who were at Mercer College?
Jim Henderik or Joe Henderik or Tom Trimble?
OK.
There, now, there was someone else who was at Mercer though.
Yeah, that sounds familiar, and then also there was somebody at Wake Forest.
Wake Forest, I don't . . .
Yeah, and I can't recall. Dorothy, she reminded me she can't recall who it was, too. There was someone very active at Wake Forest, amm, was W. W. Finlator ever in that?
Not that I know of.
Is that right? Well, how about this guy, Pulley, North Carolina, wild-eyed preacher, white . . . I think Southern Baptist, who was very, who I think was, if he wasn't active he was a supporter.
I could run him down —
Pulley or was it Poteat?
Poteat.
Poteat.
Yeah, there was a Poteat.
P, O, T, E, A, T
Yeah, there was a Poteat.
P, O, T, E, A, T, maybe that's who it is.
Right. OK. Yeah. I've seen that name. I never knew him myself, though.
Yeah. Let's see. I was trying to think of . . . there is another person from Mercer and I can't for the life of me think of this person. I can't think for the life of me who that was back in the '60's.
I've got it down somewhere in my notes.
Uh ha.
I remember there was someone from Mercer that surprised me it was a new name to me.
Yeah.
But I can run that one down, too.
OK. Of course, George Barrett. You must have that name.
Yes.
You would want to . . .
The Attorney.
Yeah.
OK.
Poteat, yes, Duncan Grey. Do you know that name?
Yeah.
OK, also Robert Hughes.
Right.
Alabama.
Uh ha. The missionary that got kicked out of Rhodesia.
That's right.
Yeah.
You would want to talk with him.
In fact, he was a missionary to Alabama from Rhodesia for a while.
Beg your pardon?
He was a missionary to Alabama from Rhodesia . . .
That's right.
For a while.
That's right. And, of course, you are going to talk to Julius Lester, I suppose.
Yes.
Let me see who else.
Do you know where Julius Lester is?
Yes, University of Massachusetts Amherst, the last I heard.
Oh.
I think he is still there.
OK.
He's been on that faculty for some time now. Let me think who else around Nashville. Oh, there was a reporter who was a good friend of Will's at the, what's the name of the paper?
The Tennessean?
The Tennessean. Who wrote a couple of the studies of the, wrote a couple of the studies of the Human Relations in Nashville. I can't think of his name. He later went, I think, to NBC news . . .
Oh, really?
As a writer. Will should know who this is. He was there is '60.
OK.
He should be, he should be helpful.
OK.
Let me see. Oh, yes, Pat Waters.
Yes.
From Atlanta, should be helpful. I don't know if, if what's his name became the State Department Spokesperson for Carter . . .
Oh, Young?
Huh?
Andy Young?
No, no, from Greenville, Mississippi.
Oh, a Carter, Hodding.
Hodding Carter. Now, his father, too, might be a valuable source if his father is still living.
I don't think he is.
Uh ha. OK. And, of course, P. D. East, but he is dead, isn't he?
Yeah.
Oh, lordy. Oh, yes. That's right. Dorothy has reminded me of a woman in Greenville, Tennessee. Yes, I can't remember her last name, Jean something, but Will Campbell should know.
Yes.
She would be somebody to talk to about it. Then there was someone in Crossville, Tennessee, also.
Was that Elbert Jean?
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
Right.
Elbert Jean. Well, let me see. I guess, I guess Nell Morton must have given you some names of the old group, didn't she?
Yeah.
Some of those people were still around in the '60's.
Tom Kilgore was one of that old group. He had been in North Carolina at one time.
That's right. That's where he was born and raised.
You ever run into a Charles McCoy?
I'm not sure.
He's at Pacific School of Religion now. Teaches ethics there.
Uh ha.
But he was a student at Duke in the '40's . . .
Yeah.
And got related to Nell, was a secretary of the Southern Churchmen, . . . Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, then . . .
Right.
In Chapel Hill and they were integrating churches and the universities around Chapel Hill . . .
Uh ha.
Back around '46, '47, and I'm trying to see if there was a connection at all between what they were doing then and the Civil Rights Movement in the '50's and '60's. Some of them maintain they worked out the tactics of the later Civil Rights Movement. Like they would send a pair, male and female, white and black, four people to the various churches.
To what?
They would go to various churches and just walk in and sit down.
Uh ha.
And do their integration in that pattern in the '40's, and I was just astounded that they did it and got away with it.
Well, of course, though that two-by-two tactic is a fairly old thing, though, because, you see, the actual, the first sit-in technique was really developed in places like Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Cleveland, Washington, D. C., in the early '40's.
Uh ha.
It was written about, it was written up in a whole variety of national publications at the time.
Uh ha.
That's where the Congress of Racial Equality began.
Yeah.
They grew out of the early sit-ins that were in the North . . .
Uh ha.
Of restaurants and skating rinks. By the time I came along, the Congress
of Racial Equality was doing summer workcamps, summer
Uh ha.
This was by 1946, 47.
Uh ha.
They were doing that.
All right. They also participated with the Fellowship of Reconciliation in the 1947 test of the Interstate Commerce Commission Ruling . . .
Right. Yes. Right.
Nell Morton and that group.
Yes, that's right. Those were the contacts all across that area.
Uh ha. Do you think groups of people like this, Nell and all those folks, helped to form, at all in any way, a network of people who later were involved in the Regional Civil Rights Movement of the South?
Oh, yes. I think that's true. I think that's clear. That there was a network in the '40's of people who were experimenting with the whole variety of multi-racial contact and efforts.
Uh ha.
I was beholden to it, too, because in, by the time '57 rolled around, frequently my host in places like Monroeville, Virginia, Little Rock, Crossville, and a lot of these places would be a white family . . .
Uh ha.
That was a product either of the FOR Network or that old Fellowship of Southern Churchmen.
Uh ha.
They would be the people who would house me and all the rest of it so there was a significant Network that they were a part of.
Glad to know that.
It is an important Network.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course.
In the, well, I shouldn't just say that because in the early, in the late '40's also I was a recipient of it because of, in Methodist meetings that I had to attend as a National Youth Officer in places like Kentucky, and Tennessee also a number of them were my hosts.
Uh ha. So you kind of got into the Network early on.
That's right. I almost forgot the fact that I got into the Network in the late '40's.
OK.
Early '50's.
Well, well, I thank you for your time, Jim.
OK, Dallas.
And I will probably be in touch with you again.
OK.
And tell Dorothy hello, and thanks a lot.
OK.
OK.
Best wishes to you, hear.
You, too.
All right.
All right.
END OF INTERVIEW