Teaching Nonviolence

Thank you for “Civil Rights Advocate Stays Focused on King’s Dream” (Jan. 19), on the Rev. James Lawson -- this extraordinary man who lives in Angelenos’ midst. Martin Luther King Jr. called him “the teacher.” One Saturday a month, at L.A.’s Holman United Methodist Church, Lawson welcomes all comers to study the theory and strategies of nonviolence that defeated segregation in the South without a bloodbath. Love will overcome hate, says the teacher -- if it is informed, disciplined and organized around an implacable hostility to violence that challenges the destruction of our hearts, our communities, our nation and our world.

Mimi Kennedy Dilg

Van Nuys