UFCW Local 1529
Standing strong for working families
Powering · Labor Education
Dr. James M. Lawson Jr.
1928 — 2024
Methodist minister. Conscientious objector. Architect of the Nashville sit-ins. Strategist of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike. The teacher Dr. King called "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world."
Memphis is again under occupation — federal task forces, ICE activity, militarized policing. Nobody else has a working Lawson-method training manual ready for this moment. So we built one. Free. Photocopy-ready. Use it tonight.
"The methods of nonviolence are not cowardice but the highest expression of courage."
— Dr. James M. Lawson Jr.
Dr. Lawson trained 200 young people in a Nashville church basement in 1959 and 1960. The people who walked out of that basement integrated the lunch counters of the South, rode the Freedom Buses, marched from Selma to Montgomery, and — when their teacher called them home to Memphis in 1968 — stood with the sanitation workers carrying signs that read I AM A MAN. Dr. King followed Lawson here. Lawson buried his friend here. The work he handed us did not retire with him.
This page exists because Memphis needs his method now — and in 2026, with federal agents in our streets and ICE at our workplaces, nobody else has put one on the page in a form a faith leader, a union steward, or a grandmother can pick up and use the same night.
The Six Principles of Nonviolence
The moral architecture of all nonviolent direct action. If a person rejects the principles, they may still march — but they should not lead, and they should not be deputized as a marshal.
Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people
Not the weapon of cowards. The willingness to bear violence without returning it requires more courage than throwing the first punch.
The Beloved Community is the framework for the future
We act not to defeat our opponents but to redeem them. Every action's end goal is reconciliation, not victory.
Attack forces of evil, not persons doing evil
Separate the system from the person. The system that ordered the occupation is the target. The deputy on the corner is a person.
Accept suffering without retaliation for the sake of the cause
The hardest principle and the one that wins every campaign. Memphis 1968 sanitation workers absorbed clubs and tear gas without striking back — and they won.
Avoid internal violence of the spirit
Refuse to hate. Refuse to demean. The discipline of the heart is the harder discipline. Test it daily.
The universe is on the side of justice
The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice not because history is fair, but because God's people bend it.
The Six Steps of Nonviolent Action
Lawson and King's operational playbook. Every successful campaign of the Civil Rights Movement followed these six steps in order. Skipping a step does not save time — it loses the campaign.
Information Gathering
Investigate. Read contracts. Pull public records. Map decision-makers.
Education
Teach the community. Mass meetings, leaflets, sermons, social media. The workshop itself is this step.
Personal Commitment
Each participant decides alone if they can hold the discipline. Front line is not the only role.
Negotiation
Direct conversation. Specific demand, specific timeline, specific consequence of refusal.
Direct Action
Only if negotiation fails. Sit-ins, marches, boycotts, strikes — always the last tool, never the first.
Reconciliation
Rebuild the relationship after the action. The step most movements skip and the one Lawson said matters most.
The conditions Dr. Lawson trained us for are happening now.
Federal task force agents in unmarked vehicles. ICE at workplaces. Militarized local police trained by, and accountable to, no one we can vote out. The principles do not change. The drills must.
The workshop manual you can download above contains the role-play scenarios, the ICE protocols (in English and Spanish), the legal-observer playbook, the mass-arrest jail support phone tree, and the action-day script — all in Lawson's method, adapted for Memphis under the conditions of 2026.
- 6 Principles & 6 Steps
- Self-discipline drills (verbal onslaught, line break, arrest position)
- 6 Memphis role-play scenarios
- Federal task force / ICE protocols (EN + ES)
- Legal observer + jail support playbook
- Action day protocol & debrief
- The Lawson Pledge (signed by every marcher)
- Memphis hotlines & allied orgs
The torch is still in Memphis hands.
Dr. Lawson did not leave Memphis without successors. The Centenary pulpit he held during the 1968 strike has a working pastor today — a former union leader Lawson mentored personally — carrying the Lawson method forward from the same sanctuary.
Pastor Keith Caldwell
Senior pastor at Centenary UMC — Dr. Lawson's home pulpit during the 1968 sanitation strike and one of the strategy hubs for the campaign Dr. King joined at Lawson's invitation. A former union leader himself, Pastor Caldwell was personally mentored by Dr. Lawson and now carries the Lawson method forward from the same McLemore Avenue sanctuary — today as President of MICAH, the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, leading the city's largest faith-rooted organizing coalition, and as the Organizer for the Workers Interfaith Network, standing with Memphis workers against wage theft and unsafe conditions.
Pastor Caldwell speaking at Centenary UMC, Memphis.
Mr. Bill Lucy at the Mason Temple pulpit, fifty years to the night after Dr. King's “Mountaintop” speech. On the dais behind him: Dr. James Lawson (far left) and the last surviving AFSCME Local 1733 sanitation workers from the 1968 strike.
On the 50th anniversary week of the strike, Dr. Lawson and Bill Lucy returned to Memphis to cut the ribbon on the I AM A MAN Plaza — a permanent public monument to the 1968 sanitation workers. Two of the most important architects of the strike, back at the corner where it began, fifty years on.
Above: Dr. Lawson (left) and Bill Lucy (right) at the ribbon. (Photos: MLK50 / Andrea Morales.)
Kevin Bradshaw (selfie, foreground) and Kermit Moore (in orange) at the Lorraine Motel, standing beneath the balcony outside Room 306 where Dr. King was killed. On the balcony: Rev. Jesse Jackson with Rev. Dr. Dwight Montgomery standing to his right — Memphis pilgrimage, 50th anniversary week, April 2018.
How to run this at your hall, church, or community center
What you need
A room with chairs that move. 8 to 30 participants. Two trained facilitators if possible. 4 hours minimum, or split across two evenings. Printed copies of the manual (1 per person).
Who should attend
Union stewards. Faith leaders and clergy. Worker center staff. Marshals from any planned action. People who plan to put their bodies on the line — and the people who will support them from outside.
Who should NOT attend uncritically
Anyone unwilling to sign the Lawson Pledge. Anyone bringing a weapon. Anyone impaired. The discipline begins at the door, not in the street.
After the workshop
Each participant signs Appendix A (the Lawson Pledge). Marshals are designated. The legal observer team is briefed. The jail support phone tree is built. The next action date is set.
Need a trainer in person?
The Memphis & West TN CLC can provide a trained facilitator for any union local, faith community, or worker center hosting a Lawson workshop. Contact President Kevin Bradshaw at (901) 603-8296 or bradshawsolutions@gmail.com.
"I hereby pledge myself to refrain from violence of fist, tongue, and heart."
Every marcher who goes to the action signs a copy. The signed pledge is the bond of discipline. The full 10-point pledge is in the manual.
Get the Workshop ManualFrom Nashville lunch counters to Los Angeles hotel workers
After Memphis, Dr. Lawson moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and pastored Holman United Methodist Church for twenty-five years. He never stopped teaching the method. From that pulpit and from the streets of L.A., he mentored generations of organizers who built California's modern labor movement — hotel workers, janitors, garment workers, warehouse workers, port truck drivers.
UNITE HERE Local 11 — the union of hotel, restaurant, and food service workers in Southern California and Arizona — was one of the unions Dr. Lawson trained, marched with, and went to jail beside. The tribute below was produced by Local 11 after his death in 2024. It runs from the 1950s Nashville sit-ins to L.A. hotel workers demanding respect in 2024.
“From the 1950's lunch counter sit-ins demanding racial integration in Nashville to today's worker demonstrations for respect here in Los Angeles, Reverend James M. Lawson Jr. taught us all to be leaders in a movement of love.” — UNITE HERE Local 11
Pre-filled message: “Watch UNITE HERE Local 11's tribute to Dr. James Lawson — "Remembering Reverend James M. Lawson Jr." — on the Memphis & West TN CLC Labor Education site.”
Further study
Primary sources by and about Dr. Lawson.
Keep going — other resources on Lawson & the 1968 strike
Lawson — Knowledge Check
Five questions. Score 4 or higher to claim a printable certificate honoring your study of Dr. James M. Lawson Jr..
Keep reading: Memphis strike history from 1968 to now
Struggle & Solidarity: Labor Strikes in Memphis (1968-Present) — a free eBook by President Kevin Bradshaw walking through every major Memphis labor fight from the sanitation strike to today's picket lines.
Read the free eBook"We who in engaging in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive."
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., echoing Dr. Lawson, from Birmingham Jail, 1963
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