The Rev. James Lawson turned a ceremony to unveil his portrait into a call to work for justice and peace for the friends, colleagues and admirers who gathered to honor him.
“Don’t live in the world as if you were renting or act as if you are only here for the summer,” he said, paraphrasing the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. “Live and act as if you live in your father’s house.”
Lawson, briefly expelled from Vanderbilt in 1960 as a divinity school student for his work helping to desegregate lunch counters in downtown Nashville, returned in 2006 to teach. The portrait ceremony recognized the 50th anniversary of his arrival at Vanderbilt in 1958.
Watch “The Rev. Lawson Returns.”
Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu