Rev. Lee Williamson (1939-2009):

A Nonviolent Life Lived with Passion, Humor and Grace

I have just learned that my good friend and colleague, Rev. Lee Williamson, has died.  I first met Lee at the Alameda County Jail in 1983, where we had landed after being arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  

LLNL, some forty miles east of San Francisco, California, designed fifty percent of the US nuclear arsenal, and 1200 of us had decided to publicly withdraw our consent.  Lee was one of 14 ministers arrested on that warm June day.  There were so many arrestees that the authorities stashed us in two large tents, one for women, one for men.  

A legacy of fearlessness, humor, and commitment to justice, peace and Gospel nonviolence

Prior to the demonstration, the organizers had received reliable information that the authorities planned to impose two years of probation on each of us, a move that could very well spell the end of the then-burgeoning anti-nuclear movement in Northern California.  We were therefore encouraged to withhold our names until we were in front of a judge.  The idea was to communicate that we were willing to stay in jail rather than accept long-term probation.  

After two weeks, the government relented, and the thousand of us who had stayed put over that fortnight were released with time served — and no probation.  

About a week before this breakthrough, however, Lee Williamson and another minister offered to test the waters: they would give their name and submit to arraignment in order to find out what the district attorney and the judge handling these cases actually had in mind.  If they managed to receive a reasonable sentence — that is, without untoward probation — then the rest of the group could proceed in their footsteps.  

After a brief trial they were sentenced to 40 days in prison, which they began serving post-haste in the jail’s general population. This reality check, I suspect, strengthened the resolve of the remaining arrestees to stiffen their solidarity — and helped make the more felicitous outcome a reality.  As Lee’s long-time colleague Carolyn Scarr says, it probably also moved the judge.  The willingness of two local pastors to take a 40 day sentence was likely a major factor in changing his mind about handing down heavy sentences.  

After everyone else was set free, the judge ordered the two ministers released as well.

Lee’s act of courage and tenacity moved me deeply, and it sparked the beginning of a long and powerful relationship.  Countless stories of Lee’s fearlessness, humor, and commitment to justice, peace and Gospel nonviolence crowd my mind tonight.  The youngest of eleven children who, at mid-life, became a United Methodist minister, Lee was a powerful agent for nonviolent change and could be counted on to give everything he had to mend every broken circle.  He modeled for us what a person of faith and conscience can be in this world.

I last saw Lee in May at a talk Fr. Louie Vitale gave in Hayward.  Lee briefly got up and chided the peace and justice movement for singling out certain leaders for praise and attention.  At the risk of offending Lee’s wishes, I join people everywhere in honoring Lee Williamson for who he was — and for all he did to re-weave the web of life.

Thank you, Lee.

Ken Butigan

July 30, 2009

For more on Lee’s life and work, click below:

Obituary in the online newsletter of the California-Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church

City of Hayward Year 2004 Lifetime Award testimony