Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love

Late civil rights leader Lawson, who died in 2024, offers an engrossing behind-the-scenes look at his work organizing nonviolent resistance in this posthumous memoir coauthored with journalist Yellin (Our Mothers’ War). Born in Massillon, Ohio, in 1928 and descended from a line of Methodist ministers, Lawson recalls being outraged by racism and called by God to “challenge... hate” as early as age four. The chronological account gathers steam during Lawson’s yearlong stint in federal prison for refusing to register for the Korean War draft in 1951 and his subsequent studies of nonviolent protest during three years in India and Africa as a missionary. After returning to the U.S. in 1958, Lawson led nonviolent workshops for groups including the Little Rock Nine, the Birmingham Freedom Riders, and participants in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike, which culminated in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. While the memoir primarily serves as a humble, meticulous record of Lawson’s leadership in the 1960s and ’70s, the final act offers a fascinating glimpse of his more recent work with Los Angeles’s labor and immigrant rights movements. It adds up to a soul-stirring testament to the transformative power of “leading with love.” Photos. Agent: Jennifer Gates, Aevitas Creative Management. (Feb.)