In memoriam

remembering a mentor

This has been such a rough week. I thought I was going to write about strategies on maintaining a commitment to DEI. Then I thought I was going to write about Naomi Klein’s book Shock Doctrine to contextualize the abusive blitz of executive orders and offer a little encouragement. But a really important mentor of mine passed away on Monday, and I think some of his legacy is sitting with me right now, so I wanted to share a little about the Rev. Phil Lawson, in case you might also resonate with the lessons he taught me. (You may know him yourself, or if you read Pre-Post-Racial America, you encountered him in the first chapter of the book when I featured him and two other powerful pastors taking on anti-Blackness.)

When I applied for the position of Director of Interfaith Programs at East Bay Housing Organizations over 12 years ago, the executive director asked me about my work in faith-based organizing. I said, “I actually come out of the school of faith-rooted organizing,” and before I could explain why that distinction mattered, she said, “Oh—Rev. Lawson founded this position, so I know PLENTY about faith-rooted organizing.” That position is how I got to know Rev. Lawson, who was SO generous in continuing his work on housing justice for many years to follow.

Rev. Lawson was from the same corner of Ohio as I was, and he talked about confronting the racial violence of that area when he was growing up as part of what shaped him (and presumably his older brother, the Rev. James Lawson, who passed away last year after a lifetime of racial and economic justice and nonviolence, including leading the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins of the 1960s). There are several lessons he taught me that I return to over and over:

• At one point in his career, he had earned the credibility to negotiate between the Black Panthers and the police during his ministry in Kansas City. He never compromised his values, and also living with integrity and consistency allowed him to play a critical role in keeping people safe during a period of such heightened and understandable distrust. I know some of us will need to play this type of role, and doing so without falling into the trap of propping up existing systems of injustice is SO difficult. I wonder how to learn from his example on this issue.

• When we would lose a campaign for a local housing policy, Rev. Phil would remind us “it was never about just this policy. It’s not even about housing in general. It’s about creating Beloved Community. This was just one tool to move towards that.” And when we won a campaign, he’d say basically the same thing. I think we all know that in the short term, we will face a lot of losses. Already that is coming at a real and tangible cost to some of us and/or people we love. That matters. And also sometimes we forget that a specific campaign win isn’t the real goal. We need to hold onto the bigger vision for the world we want. In the process, we might actually find a different path to realizing that vision. I hadn’t thought about it before, but that learning from Rev. Phil might have something to do with the think tank I’m hoping to establish, holding a 50-year vision for the world we want to inhabit.

• I remember talking with him one time about the civil rights movement and he quickly stopped me and said “We called it the US Freedom movement, because we were fighting not just for our rights but for the soul of our country.” (I noticed that at Congressman John Lewis’s memorial service, Rev Phil’s brother Rev James Lawson used the same phrase, “the US Freedom movement” during his eulogy, which is worth listening to again today if you have the time.)

• I remember talking many years ago with a friend of mine who had been a key leader in the fight for LGBT+ rights all the way back to the sixties, whom I knew through our shared justice work in the church. I mentioned what a great ally for LGBTQ+ rights Rev. Phil was. My friend (now also a movement ancestor) said, “that wasn’t always the case.” He had been one of Rev. Phil’s conversation partners who helped move him and others that I had only ever known as powerful faith leaders for LGBTQ+ inclusion. And he shared that it had been a painful personal loss that ultimately moved him. I think about what it means for someone to model for the rest of us getting things wrong and evolving. I think about that because there are a lot of people I hope to see evolve from where they are right now, and because I am not always great at naming that there are plenty of issues where I had to evolve. That’s a muscle I need to develop.

There are a lot more stories I’m holding right now, but I want to end with the fact that him passing at this moment has me thinking a lot about his bravery about standing for justice. He risked his safety. He risked being kicked out of the church. He risked being considered a traitor. He lived out his values at a time when to do so was dangerous. He didn’t do so casually or cavalierly. As part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, he was part of a group that was as strategic as it was (and is) dedicated to its principles. And he took on that risk regularly. I’m considering seriously which strategic and principled organization to embed myself in to bolster my courage and to not hide from living out my values at this moment where it feels like the risk will grow.

Rev. Phil and his wife JoAnn have both given so much to me, and I’m holding Mrs. Lawson very much in prayer. And I’m holding all of us in prayer as we seek our particular place in this new iteration of the US Freedom Movement.

with gratitude,

Sandhya

This photo comes from an excellent article in Street Spirit about Rev. Phil from 2013.