Karen McGill Lawson
Karen McGill Lawson was born in Martin, West Virginia, where she experienced segregation as a child and still has vivid memories of having to sit in balcony area of movie theaters. She soon noticed that the effects of segregation were not confined to the south alone once her family moved to Philadelphia, PA, where she saw the disparity in resources among predominately White and Black schools. As a young woman, she was influenced by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty.
Motivated by a desire to go into public service and "change the system," Ms. Lawson pursued her B.A. and M.A. degrees, both in sociology, from Penn State and Notre Dame, respectively, a decision she calls, "a natural choice for me." During the 1970s and early 1980s, Ms. Lawson served at the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), then chaired by Arthur Flemming, a committed advocate for civil rights. During her tenure at USCCR, Ms. Lawson was the education monitor, where she was responsible for coordinating fact finding missions at nationwide hearings on the progress of desegregation efforts within the nation’s public schools, and helped produce status reports on federal regulations, and budgetary spending, including With All Deliberate Speed 1954 - ?? She left USCCR during the Reagan administration, after seeing conservatives diminish the power and independence of the Commission’s civil rights enforcement duties.
Ms. Lawson came to Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) in 1985 when the organization had only four people on staff. At that time, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), LCCR’s sister organization, was no more than an organization on paper. Ms. Lawson quickly created the Civil Rights Monitor, a quarterly publication that reports on civil rights issues pending before the three branches of government, and became a fierce fundraiser. With the generous support of the Ford Foundation, and under Ms. Lawson’s guidance, LCCREF produced educational materials for teachers and children on diversity in American life. Ms. Lawson is co-author of Talking to Our Children About Racism, Prejudice and Diversity; Building One Nation, A Study Of What Is Being Done Today in Schools, Neighbors and the Workplace; and All Together Now!; and is a contributing editor of Voting Rights in America: Continuing the Quest for Full Participation, a collection of essays on voting rights, which includes an essay by President Bill Clinton.
Karen McGill Lawson currently serves as LCCREF president and CEO and deputy director for educational operations for LCCR. During her lifetime she says she has "really seen this country transform," and is glad to know "that her granddaughter will never have to experience the segregation that she witness as a little girl back Martin, West Virginia."
