ACLU/SC Board Member Named to National Chairmanship
The Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr., an internationally acclaimed civil rights leader, religious scholar and board member of the ACLU of Southern California, has been named chair of the ACLU National Advisory Council.
“We are proud and honored to have this ‘quiet giant’ of the civil rights movement take the helm of the ACLU’s National Advisory Council,” said ACLU President Nadine Strossen. “Rev. Lawson is unquestionably a man of peace, but he is also a fierce warrior for justice who will not back down from a fight no matter how imposing the enemy is.”
Rev. Lawson was elected to the position by the ACLU’s 83-member board at its quarterly meeting in April. As chair of the National Advisory Council, he will act as an advisor to the ACLU on civil liberties matters, as well as serve as a public advocate for the issues the ACLU champions. The 56-member Advisory Council is a diverse group of prominent Americans who have demonstrated a deep commitment to civil liberties.
Rev. Lawson, 77, is well known in the civil rights community as a deputy and advisor to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who once called Rev. Lawson “the leading non-violence theorist in the world.” He was at the forefront of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s as the mentor and leader of students who conducted the sit-ins that integrated the lunch counters, libraries and voting booths of the South, as well as the Freedom Riders who helped end forced segregation on buses and trains.
“The insight, compassion and moral authority of Rev. Lawson has been a critical part of the ACLU of Southern California,” said Ramona Ripston, ACLU/SC executive director. “His leadership has helped us win critical fights for schools desegregation and raise awareness for the need to protect all of our region’s disparate communities.”
Strossen noted that Rev. Lawson has been at the forefront of the 21st-century struggle for civil liberties and human rights. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Lawson became a founder of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, which includes Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Protestant leaders, and calls on religions “to stop blessing war” and violence in all its forms.
He is also a spiritual leader in advocacy for equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, insisting that their struggle for equality under the law is part of the continuing quest for human rights and human dignity for all people.
Rev. Lawson retired in 1999 as senior pastor of the 2,700-member Holman United Methodist Church on West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles. Since 2004, he has served a second term as president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group founded by Dr. King. Lawson is also chairman of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, which is in the forefront of a Los Angeles campaign for a living wage for hotel, garment and restaurant workers and others.
JULY 2006
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