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Starred Review This wonderful book is a powerful reminder that moral clarity can improve the world. As a boy, Lawson had a “transcendent” experience: “a voice beyond myself” forbid him from responding to racist taunts with violence. Thus began his lifelong commitment to nonviolence, which guided his work as an adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and an organizer of sit-ins, strikes, and marches that helped to overturn discriminatory laws. A Methodist pastor who died in 2024, hi

From The New York Times Protesters blocking traffic on Friday night in Memphis after a video of the police killing of Tyre Nichols was released. Credit...Desiree Rios/The New York Times MEMPHIS — On April 3, 1968, shortly before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would deliver what turned out to be his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” at a Memphis church packed with striking sanitation workers, the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., a local minister and national strategis

In 1968, 1,300 African- American sanitation workers in Memphis demanded that the world treat them as fully human. Their courage, dignity, love and persistence during that fateful 65-day strike, meant their children and grandchildren have found opportunities to become entrepreneurs, academics, corporate, medical and non-profit professionals, and more. A few even work in today’s sanitation department, but with much-improved conditions, because of the fight their fathers and mot

A statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest was removed from a park in Memphis late Wednesday. A statue of Jefferson Davis was also taken down. Credit: Brandon Dill for The New York Times MEMPHIS — Charlene Harmon and her fiancé, Victor Bryant, walked Thursday through a small park overlooking the Mississippi River, pleased by the view — and what it did not include. “I feel a sense of relief,” said Ms. Harmon, 63, a retired nurse. “Finally, we can come down and really enjoy this park.