My dear and much beloved preacher-teacher friend and spiritual mentor Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor was a great historically Black college president, a Peace Corps leader in Africa, and pastor of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
As our nation continues to mourn Rev. Lawson’s own death last month, his words are resonating deeply again right now. Rev. Lawson was honoring “the conscience of Congress” during another perilous political moment, and wanted to tell us what he believed our nation needed to do in order to move forward.
Gun Violence
In the midst of this season’s joyful graduation celebrations, one commencement ceremony stood out in a heartbreaking way because of the friends who were missing.
When my friend and mentor Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr. passed away on June 9 at age 95, our nation and world lost a prophet of nonviolence and a peerless teacher and role model who was the living embodiment of fierce love and nonviolent direct action organizing for effective social change.
Black history is American history, and Juneteenth is another chance to celebrate our full history
Gun Violence
June is Gun Violence Awareness Month in our nation, and June 7-9 is Wear Orange Weekend.
Sixty years ago, as President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to college students at Ohio University and the University of Michigan in May 1964, he spoke publicly for the first time about the idea of a “Great Society”—and told students that young people could be its builders.
This is the joyous time of year when families, friends, and teachers are cheering on graduates of all ages who have worked so hard and made them all so proud.
Education
May 17 marks the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Like so many Black families, mine spent the spring of 1954 waiting anxiously for news of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case.