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The Lawson Affair

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The Lawson Affair By RAY WADDLE, MA’81 In 1960, Divinity School student James Lawson was asked to withdraw from Vanderbilt. He chose not to do so. DAYSHis decision changed the way insiders andof the nation viewed the University. THUNDER The Lawson Affair PHOTO BY NEIL BRAKE 35 n March 21, 1960, the Divinity School dedicated its new building complex and chapel. It was eagerly awaited. The school had been part of Vanderbilt from the beginning, nearly a century before, surviving church squabbles, economic hard times, damage by fire. The new quadrangle was to be a tribute to the school’s growing national reputation. It was to be a permanent symbol of progressive Christian spirituality in the conservative Protestant South. On dedication day, however, things were “It was not possible to build a major uni- Onot well. Festivities were subverted by a length- versity with this problem,”recalls Charles ening shadow of conflict. A nightmarish con- Roos, retired professor of physics who became troversy over racial justice, civil disobedience a key negotiator in resolving the Lawson affair. and University power was fast getting nation- “This thing just had to be settled.” al attention. Despite the new building, the In the spring of 1960, the Lawson crisis future of the Divinity School was in jeopardy. would test Vanderbilt’s self-identity to new Crisis was nigh. Within weeks, most of the limits. The ordeal threatened to set Vander- GERALD HOLLY, COURTESY OF THE TENNESSEAN 16 divinity professors would submit resig- bilt back by years as a national research insti- nations, with other University faculty poised tution. Top-notch faculty were ready to leave learned how to deal with conflict—and it phy of Vanderbilt University, it is used for the The expulsion of James Lawson from the Divini- to follow. Administrative leaders would soon the University over it, and major foundation was lucky to have weathered it.” narrative to follow. ty School sparked national debate. On the Van- derbilt campus, students protested outside threaten to shut down the Divinity School funding would likely disappear with them. A new book, a history of the Divinity School “When it is a conflict like the one in 1960,” Kirkland Hall in support of Lawson. altogether and, if need be, hand the newly As it turned out, the Lawson episode was a called Vanderbilt Divinity School: Education, Lawson, now past 70, recalls in Vanderbilt dedicated building over to the Law School. soul-searching referendum on what the Uni- Contest, and Change,revisits the episode, Divinity School,“where we had the city on no one had an easy time grasping. The turmoil of the Lawson affair, as it was versity wanted to be—either a major center offering fresh perspectives and the clarity of one side, a determined movement on the Through exasperated effort and courage, called, would engulf the campus before it was of learning or, as critics put it, a “southern 40 years’ hindsight. The book’s Lawson chap- other side, and the University, that has explo- the thing was settled by mid-June 1960. Reper- over. The conflict sprang from the expulsion finishing school.”It was a showdown of clash- ter is a transcript of a 1998 roundtable dis- sive qualities that none of us could have pre- cussions were felt on campus for years and of a divinity student, James Lawson, for his ing values—Vanderbilt’s reach for national cussion that included various participants dicted or understood. So it was trial by still leave their mark. And it has led to endless off-campus leadership in Nashville’s fledg- status versus sectional traditionalism and fear from those days. They include Charles Roos experiment, by error, for all of us.” debate ever since about the legacy and char- ling civil rights movement. The controver- of change. In the minds of many, it was the and James Lawson himself, now a retired The Lawson controversy involved epic acter of Chancellor Harvie Branscomb, who sy pitted Divinity’s pro-Lawson supporters most critical moment in the history of Van- Methodist minister in Los Angeles after a long negotiations and miscalculations, contested had Lawson expelled in the first place. Iron- against Chancellor Harvie Branscomb and derbilt University. career in parish ministry and social advoca- facts, seat-of-the-pants judgment calls, careers ically, it was Branscomb who led Vanderbilt the Vanderbilt Board of Trust. Despite all “It was a defining event, and still is,”says cy. Edited by church historian Dale John- put at risk, political naiveté and personal tor- into racial integration (one of its schools, that efforts, University officers were seeing a fast- Eugene TeSelle, retired professor of church son of the Divinity School, the book will stand ment. What began as a personnel matter— is) in 1952, but he was blamed for the racial- spreading public relations meltdown that history at the Divinity School. “In a sense as one of the crucial sources for understanding the expulsion of Lawson—blew up into a ly charged Lawson episode eight years later. might sabotage Vanderbilt’s dreams of nation- Vanderbilt was lucky to have had this crisis that era of campus history. Along with Paul national fracas, the result of defensiveness and “One of the things I have reflected upon al standing and repute. at this period in history—the University Conkin’s book Gone with the Ivy: A Biogra- distrust in a time of rapid social change that is that I feel very strongly that Harvie 36 Fall 2002 V anderbilt Magazine 37 Branscomb made a major error in his life,” King, who urged him to come South in the draw on higher laws of faith and civilization, Lawson says. “He obviously did not have struggle for justice for black Americans. the power of biblical righteousness, hoping enough people around him to help him get Impressed with Vanderbilt and with the to shame the merchants into seeing the through in a fashion that could have reduced cadre of educated African American students immorality of their practices against fellow the tension in the University. My own major in the local black colleges, Lawson came to human beings. reflection as I look back upon it is that we Nashville as staff organizer for the peace-ori- The sit-ins reached an early peak at the have to accept the man as he was, as we have ented Fellowship of Reconciliation, as well end of February 1960. Scores of black stu- to accept ourselves, because in the situation as a divinity student. dents (and some white students) were taking we get, we all make errors.” January 1960 was the last moment the bub- part. Hostilities edged toward confrontations From the University’s viewpoint, James ble of southern segregation could still appear with angry whites who surrounded the sit- Lawson in 1960 was sabotaging Branscomb’s complacently safe and sound in Nashville. in students at the downtown lunch spots. careful plan of easing the broader Universi- Segregation was being tested or struck down Lawson was portrayed in the local newspa- ty into a new world of racial equality. The Law- elsewhere. The year 1954 was the beginning pers as an outspoken leader of the new move- son episode, coming when it did, forced an of the end, when racial separatism was legal- ment, an outsider who defied local authorities unwelcome revolution of thought and action. ly discredited by the Brown v. Board of Edu- in the name of divine laws of justice and dig- “Until 1960, Chancellor Branscomb suc- cation decision against a segregated education nity for black Americans. cessfully, but not without difficulty, walked system. Desegregation of Nashville schools On Feb. 27, 1960, the young demonstra- a tightrope over the volatile passions of a was slowly under way, with gusts of resistance tors were rounded up and arrested by the racial revolution in the making,”Conkin and even violence along the way. dozens, charged with disorderly conduct writes in Gone with the Ivy. But social segregation of black and white or loitering. Lawson denounced these as “But all political maneuvering ran aground continued—restaurants, movie theaters, trumped-up misdemeanors, legal “gimmicks,” in 1960 in the complicated case of one James restrooms, taxi cabs, every nook of public he said, for shutting down the protests and Lawson, the most divisive episode in all of life. In Nashville in early February 1960, this legitimating injustice. He urged demonstra- Vanderbilt’s history.” age-old pattern was challenged in a new way, tors to continue the sit-ins. Thus Lawson James Lawson was a 30-year-old transfer by a revolutionary but untested paradigm urged defiance of local laws. COURTESY OF THE TENNESSEAN … the Lawson episode was a soul-searching referendum on what the University wanted to be— meeting March 3, the executive committee When Branscomb arrived as chancellor Lawson trained black students who staged sit- of the Board of Trust agreed. in 1946, Vanderbilt was thoroughly tradi- ins at Nashville’s downtown department store either a major center of learning or, as critics put it, The book Vanderbilt Divinity School notes, tional, segregationist, southern. It was a white lunch counters. His work as staff organizer for the Fellowship of Reconciliation alarmed mem- “At this meeting the executive committee monolith, like any other major school in the bers of Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust. a “southern finishing school.” It was a showdown of clashing values … determined that Lawson would be given until South at mid-century. There was no min- 9 a.m. the next day to decide whether to with- gling of races, no black students or faculty. Testament scholar himself, a Methodist the- student from Oberlin School of Theology in and moral calculus—non-violent civil dis- Timing proved fateful.
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