James Lawson, US civil rights leader who championed nonviolence, dies at 95

FILE PHOTO: Rev. James Lawson speaks at Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, during events surrounding the 50th anniversary of the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Karen Pulfer Focht/File Photo

(Reuters) - James Lawson, a prominent civil rights leader whose advocacy of nonviolent protest influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and helped shape the 1960s movement to outlaw discrimination in the U.S., died at 95 on Sunday, his family said.

Lawson, who King once described as "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world," died of cardiac arrest en route to a hospital in Los Angeles, according to the Washington Post, which cited his son.