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3/19/2008

Houston civil rights leader Imparting his knowledge to Rice students

BY DAVID D. MEDINA
Special to the Rice News

For almost half a century, the Rev. William A. Lawson has been one of Houston's most influential community leaders. He helped orchestrate the civil rights movement in the city, marched with Martin Luther King and established a church and a nonprofit advocacy group for the poor and powerless.

THE REV. WILLIAM A. LAWSON

At 79, the retired pastor of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church is now imparting his experience and knowledge to Rice students. Lawson is the first lecturer to take part in the Houston Enriches Rice Education (HERE) project, a program designed to advance the university’s engagement with Houston.

“I selected Rev. Lawson because he exemplifies one of the goals of the HERE project, which is to bring to Rice significant community leaders who, through their life experience, professional commitments and community services, have a wealth of information to share with our students, ” said Anthony Pinn, the project’s creator. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of religious studies.

“The goal is to increase Rice’s attention to the knowledge base, the rich history and intellectual resources available in Houston and to make that source of information a vital component of the educational process,” Pinn said. “In this way, I hope to contribute to the enactment of Rice’s Vision for the Second Century.”

Lawson is teaching Religion and Social Transformation in Houston as part of the curriculum in the Religious Studies Department. The course examines the role of religion as a vehicle for social change by studying the history of the civil rights movements and its effects in Houston.

“We study how one’s faith can have a direct impact on the improvement of society,” Lawson explained. His course, Lawson said, offers a series of lectures, guest speakers and visits to four nonprofit social agencies. “I have a strong feeling that education is served better through experience than just lectures and books. Students must feel the experience,” he said.

The Rev. William A. Lawson is pictured with Dr. Martin Luther King.

His guest speakers include Rabbi Samuel F. Karff of Congregation Beth Israel; retired Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza; Robert Muhammad, minister of Mosque No. 45 in Houston; and the Rev. James Dixon. “They are religious leaders who teach people to have an impact on society,” Lawson said.

Students are required to visit SEARCH, an organization that serves the homeless; S.H.A.P.E. Community Center; the William A. Lawson Institute for Peace and Prosperity, an advocacy group that helps the poor, minorities and women; and Families Under Urban and Social Attack, a social-service organization.

Since he was 12 years old, Lawson said, he felt “impelled” to seek the religious life. He received his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Tennessee A&I in Nashville and continued his studies at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas, where he received a master’s in theology and a bachelor’s in divinity. 

Lawson came to Houston in 1960 to be director of the Baptist Student Union and professor of Bible at Texas Southern University. He was propelled into the civil rights movement when 14 TSU students conducted a sit-in to protest segregation at a Weingarten’s lunch counter. He and his wife took it upon themselves to raise money and bail the students out of jail.

In 1962, with only 13 members, Lawson established the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, whose congregation has grown to more than 2,500 members. In 1963, Martin Luther King visited Houston, and according to Lawson, none of the black churches would welcome the civil rights leader because FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had accused King of being a communist.

“He (King) was not very popular, but we invited him to our church,” Lawson said. Lawson went on to become one of the most important African-American ministers in Houston, and even today, after his retirement, Lawson continues fighting for the downtrodden. He continues to lecture at local universities, and he directs the William A. Lawson Institute for Peace and Prosperity.