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The Rev. William A. Lawson, founder of Houston’s Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, died Tuesday. He was 95 years old.
“We are so grateful to God for the life and legacy of Bill Lawson,” church leaders wrote in a Tuesday morning email to the entire congregation.
A beloved civil rights leader who established one of the city’s largest congregations after moving to Houston from Kansas City nearly 70 years ago, Lawson was often referred to as “Houston’s Pastor.”
While members of the congregation he founded, which now number about 12,000, have been kept informed of Lawson’s declining health via regular updates during services in recent weeks, his passing still sent shockwaves through a strong, connected community built by his hands and his faith.
“Reverend Lawson was a civil rights icon. He courageously fought for the rights of Black people at a time when doing so could have meant death,” Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee said in a statement Tuesday morning.
“He was a world-class mind who for decades used his voice and influence to advocate for oppressed people in Houston, throughout the US, and across the globe.”
A pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement
Lawson originally came to Houston in 1955 to serve as director of the Baptist Student Union at Texas Southern University, according to the church’s email. He founded Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in 1962, and served as pastor for 42 years. In 2004, upon his retirement, the congregation named him Founding Pastor Emeritus, a title he held for the remainder of his life.
But while his impact on the church was immense, he also became well-known for his deep work in the community at large. A close friend of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lawson joined the national Civil Rights Movement and set up a local office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“Reverend Lawson’s legacy is monumental,” Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said in a statement. “He was a pioneering force in the Civil Rights Movement, courageously hosting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at his church and supporting the brave Texas Southern University students during the sit-ins that spurred integration in our city. His commitment to justice and equality knew no bounds.”
Ellis, who counted Lawson as both a friend and mentor, said it was a “privilege” to name a Houston park after Lawson in recent years. Last spring, Ellis dedicated the Reverend William and Audrey Lawson Park, which he said will serve as a “lasting tribute to their shared commitment to uplifting every member of our community.”
Lawson’s indelible mark on the city inspired Mayor John Whitmire to begin his Tuesday budget presentation with a moment of silence, calling the late civil rights leader an “icon among icons.”
“Houston benefited from his leadership, his character,” Whitmire said. “It saddens us, but God doesn’t allow us to choose when we lose a loved one, but he does allow us to celebrate their lives.”
‘The Three Amigos’
His decades-long friendship with other religious leaders, the late Rabbi Samuel Karff and the late Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza, earned him the distinction of being named one of Houston’s “Three Amigos.” Together with the famed Catholic and Jewish leaders, he worked to tackle some of Houston’s signature issues, including “homelessness, racism and inequality, even the creation of a public defender’s office,” according to his church’s Tuesday morning missive.
“Rev. Lawson was a remarkable and beloved pastor in the local Houston community,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of the Galveston-Houston archdiocese, which serves more than 2 million Catholics in the Houston region.
DiNardo described Lawson as a “bold preacher of God’s love in action,” and hoped he would “rest in the peace of the God he served so well.”
Rabbi David Lyon, who succeeded Karff as the head of Congregation Beth Israel, recalled the eulogy he delivered for his predecessor in 2020 in front of 1,400 attendants on Zoom, including Lawson.
“I said, ‘I hope our city will endure with two amigos, because we can’t imagine anything less,’” Lyon said Tuesday. A week later, Lawson called him on the phone: He had chosen Lyon to fill Karff’s shoes as the third member of the Three Amigos.
“David,” Lawson told him then. “At my age, we need you to do the heavy lifting.”
Lyon promised to do that. And he continued to renew that promise.
“I saw Rev. Lawson about a week ago at his home with his daughters, and we shared a prayer,” Lyon said Tuesday, tearing up at the memory. “I made a promise that I would still continue to do the heavy lifting.”
That, he said, is the legacy Lawson leaves behind: A desire to serve and to lead the way to change that can improve the lives of Houstonians from all walks of life — all faiths.
“The mission continues to be to find where are the vulnerable places, people and causes in our city, and to make an effort for them,” Lyon said. “And I think now — more than ever — we have to identify those places where we can make a difference.”
Memorial services scheduled for Pastor Lawson
Lawson is survived by his three daughters, Melanie, Cheryl and Roxanne, as well as his granddaughters Robyn and Raven, two great grandsons, Amadeus and Ronin, and a large extended family.
His body will lie in state from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 23. There will be a Community Service of Celebration at 6 p.m. that day, and the Congregational Service of Celebration will be hosted at 11 a.m. on Friday, May 24. Both will take place at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, 3826 Wheeler Ave.
Staff writer Paul Cobler contributed to this story.
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