Saying goodbye to two followers of Jesus who made a difference for others

James Lawson was an icon of peace and justice. Mary Ann Richardson was an icon of welcome and hospitality

Jim Lawson died on Sunday, June 9. He was 95. The Rev. James M. Lawson was rightly called the “architect” of non-violence for the civil rights movement. As a young Methodist minister and missionary, he traveled to India and spent three years studying the relationship of Gandhi’s teachings to his own faith in Jesus and what that integration might mean for the emerging civil rights campaign in America. 

Lawson returned to America to Ohio’s Oberlin College, and one day the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to speak. When King talked with the young graduate student about India, Gandhi, non-violence and Jesus, he immediately recruited him. “Don’t wait! Come now! We don’t have anyone like you down there,” he pleaded. 

Lawson answered the call and went to Nashville in 1962 to become the director of non-violent education of the newly forming Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From there, Jim Lawson became the principal trainer of young activists for the historic sit-ins and freedom rides in Nashville and throughout the South, mentoring people like John Lewis, Diane Nash, Jim Bevel, Bernard Lafayette and so many more.

Rev. James M. Lawson speaks during the funeral service of the late Rep. John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The mentoring by Jim Lawson expanded to many more after that, including me, and many are now telling their own stories after Jim’s passing. He once hosted one of our Let Justice Roll events with myself and Ken Medema, at his Holman United Methodist Church, a large, mostly Black congregation in Los Angeles, where James Lawson spent many years in his last ministry post. I recall many formative conversations with Jim, including one at the LA airport where we just bumped into each other as he was still going out to teach well into his nineties. Jim Lawson was always “the Teacher.” 

Here is a great obituary about James Lawson in the Washington Post which recounts his amazing story. Read about Jim Lawson, listen, reflect, pray, and think about your own vocation and calling as he always asked us to do.

My second tribute is to another friend who also just passed this week, at almost the same time as James Lawson. She was far less famous and would be embarrassed to be in the same column with the civil rights icon, but she also had an impact on legions of people in the United States and around the world.

Here’s an interesting article about Mary Ann in The Orlando Sentinel.

Mary Ann Richardson was born in Tennessee and was the only female sibling to a group of men who were very successful in a variety of business activities in their home state and beyond.  She, on the other hand, went to Columbia University in New York City to study French literature. But one day, her father called and said he had just bought a motel on Daytona Beach and asked his daughter to go run it. She did. And she turned a business into a ministry. 

She redesigned the El Caribe to become one of the most creative, beautiful, warm, and inviting places on that very famous beach. And she ran the hotel that way too. During crisis storms and times that made people homeless, Mary Ann opened up her place to the most vulnerable and got some of her fellow hotel owners, almost all men, to open up some spaces too. She was once named “hotelier of the year” on the beach. 

Here’s an interesting article about Mary Ann in The Orlando Sentinel.

I was introduced to Mary Ann by a mutual friend when I was down there for work. I vividly recall our first conversation at an Italian restaurant across the street from El Caribe. What I can’t recall is how many conversations I had with Mary Ann after that first one – but it was up into the hundreds. She had been a subscriber to Sojourners, knew my books, and we had a literary conversation about some of them. She invited me to come to El Caribe whenever I needed a place to work on my books. And I did so many times; whole sections of my books were written on the top floor of her hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We would often walk on that beach discussing potential book titles and opening lines for chapters. One of her favorites was, “The World Isn’t Working!

I asked Mary Ann if I could sometimes send other activists who couldn't afford beach vacations for a place of  rest, reflection, and writing. She readily agreed and said I was “changing her ministry.” I sent her many activists, some working every day with people who were poor, homeless, marginalized, or on death row. But they got to vacation for free at Mary Ann’s on Daytona Beach. One of those I sent, who went several times, was another civil rights icon, my mentor Vincent Harding, who was in King’s inner circle as an advisor and speech writer, including his prophetic Vietnam speech at Riverside Church in New York. Vincent Harding was a good friend of Jim Lawson and Vincent Harding was also a friend of Mary Ann Richardson. 

Mary Ann continued to support Sojourners magazine and community and one time invited a bus load of mothers and their children from the Sojourners Neighborhood Center in a poor and violent part of D.C. to Daytona Beach for a free vacation. These were mothers who had never stayed in a hotel room, but many had cleaned them. Their families were very poor, and their kids had never had a vacation like this – even going to Disney World! We held fundraisers to hire a bus and make the trip, and once they arrived at El Caribe, they were met by the hotel owner who welcomed them as her honored guests with fruit baskets in all of their rooms.

My own family went to El Caribe for summer vacations; just the other day, my oldest son Luke pointed to a picture in a family photo album from Daytona Beach to say, “I learned how to swim in that pool right there.”

When I married Joy Carroll, Mary Ann invited both the American Wallis and British  Caroll families to Daytona together. It was a bonding time with all the parents and “cousins” on both sides getting to know each other, all under the hospitality of Mary Ann Richardson. My own parents, Jim and Phyllis Wallis, loved being with Mary Ann and she with them, as did John and Thelma Carroll, all watching their kids and grandkids having such fun at El Caribe on Daytona Beach. In two weeks, our family will travel to London for the funeral service of Joy’s Dad, and her Mom passed away just six months ago. Both were, gratefully, good transitions and I am realizing the memorial service will include now grown up children who would remember being at El Caribe in Daytona Beach together with Mary Ann.

Relationships are what made the life and ministry of Mary Ann Richardson. Hospitality was her great gift and calling. And bringing people together was her mission. Mary Ann hosted both Jim Wallis and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade, and my new book tells the story at the end of how enemies can turn into friends, which happened between Bill and I while staying at the El Caribe and walking together on Daytona Beach. 

Mary Ann always wanted to focus on those who needed a little help and care. She offered to host our board meetings for the Call to Renewal – a faith leaders movement focused on poverty, and for Sojourners board meetings with rooms for all and the beautiful conference room overlooking the Atlantic – all for free. Even the usual hotel gift store was transformed into a craft shop for developing world artists to send their wares. That was so typical of Mary Ann. The craft shop, of course, made no money, but she successfully kept her hotel business going, so she could offer her ministry of hospitality.

James Lawson was an icon of peace and justice. Mary Ann Richardson was an icon of welcome and hospitality. 

Ironically, the Let Justice Roll revivals with me and Ken Medema, which Jim Lawson hosted at his last church, were conceived at the El Caribe, where we came together to begin a new ministry under the loving eyes of Mary Ann Richardson, who always took us out for dinner after our day’s meetings.

My tribute this week is to both these followers of Jesus who made such a difference in the lives of so many people. God has blessed us with James Lawson and Mary Ann Richardson. Thanks be to God for both of them.

Blessings,

Jim

The False White Gospel is available on Amazon and other booksellers.