James Morris Lawson Jr.

Arrest Date	27 February 1960
Arrest Location	Nashville, Tennessee
Charge	Lunch counter sit-in. Expelled from Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Historical Record

James Lawson trained an entire generation of civil rights activists in Gandhian nonviolent resistance at workshops in Nashville. His students — Diane Nash, John Lewis, Bernard Lafayette — became the movement’s strategic core. Vanderbilt expelled him for participating in sit-ins. The Nashville movement he organized was arguably the most disciplined of the era.

Full Profile Coming

The full Good Trouble profile for James Morris Lawson Jr. — including sourced archival photography, expanded biographical history, and complete arrest record — is in development. This page will be updated as the archive grows.

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“We stand on the shoulders of giants. We plant trees in whose shade we will never sit.”

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