Playbook for Justice

Even as a small child, James Lawson wanted to create a fairer world-a world where people of all backgrounds could live in dignity and peace, as equals. In the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, that was hard to imagine. Lawson saw racial discrimination and other forms of oppression everywhere he turned.But he remembered this mission as he grew up-becoming a star athlete and a star student, then a minister and a world traveler. After learning about Mohandas Gandhi's successful nonviolent resistance to injustice in India, he knew something similar could work in the United States.So he began practicing nonviolence as both a lifestyle and a strategy. He trained for it the way he would train for a sport.Starting in the 1950s, Lawson coached other young people to become nonviolent "e;athletes"e; who refused to play by unfair rules. Strategic nonviolence became a cornerstone of the US Civil Rights Movement, leading to victories across the country.The story of nonviolent activism doesn't start or end with Lawson, though. Strategic nonviolence helped shape early US history and remains at the core of modern civil and human rights campaigns. And it starts at an individual level, with small, everyday practices. Using the playbook created by Lawson and others, anyone can train to be a nonviolent athlete and work toward a more just world.