Rev. James M. Lawson is Pastor Emeritus of Holman United Methodist Church, Los Angeles. He has been involved in civil rights struggles, the labor movement, and the fight for equality and social justice for seven decades. He served as a missionary in Nagpur, India, from 1953-56 and shortly upon his return to the U.S. joined Dr. Martin Luther King in what would become known as the ‘Civil Rights Movement.’ Rev. Lawson was a key player in, and mentor to, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and became the leading theoretician of the idea of nonviolent resistance. John Lewis, Diane Nash, James Bevel, and Bernard Lafayette are among some of his students who went on to play a critical role in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Rev. Lawson remains, at 91, the leading practitioner and teacher of the ideas of Gandhi in the U.S.