Rev. Bill Lawson Obituary: Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church founder, Houston civil rights icon dies

HOUSTON– The Rev. William A. Lawson, a civil rights icon who was also known as the Houston pastor and founder of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, died Tuesday morning at the age of 95.

The church posted a message online to its founding pastor. “He has completed his time of service here on earth and now enjoys eternal rest.”

Rev. Lawson was the father of four children, including ABC Houston affiliate KTRK’s Melanie Lawson, but generations of Houstonians knew him as a preacher and pioneer for equality.

Over the course of seven decades, Rev. Lawson helped make Houston what it is today, arriving from Kansas City in 1955 to work at Texas Southern University.

“I would love to say that I marched heroically in the civil rights movement, but it wasn’t like that at all,” Rev. Lawson said.

From TSU, he helped found the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. It started with 13 members in 1962.

A humble, soft-spoken man, he was not one to shout or shake his fist to call for change. It was his wife, Audrey, who encouraged him.

“‘Honey, you can’t have a church with just preaching and singing. You’re going to have to reach out to the neighborhood and get involved in some way with the problems of the people in the neighborhood.’ So I thought of this new church as being a church that was going to be both a religion and a social movement,” Rev. Lawson said.

He and Audrey had been married for 61 years, when she died in 2015.

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They had four children together: a son, Eric, and three daughters: Cheryl, Roxanne and Melanie.

The children grew up in a home that was visited by other civil rights icons, including Martin Luther King Jr., who tried to recruit Lawson to come to Atlanta.

He refused, choosing to collaborate with King and others in his adopted hometown, where he was building his church.

“I chose to stay here because of the people who started at 13, and at that time there were probably several hundred,” Rev. Lawson told KTRK.

Rev. Lawson retired from the pulpit in 2004, but remained an influential leader and advisor to leaders and youth.

His church now has more than 12,000 members.

It’s a testament to the enduring legacy of Bill Lawson, the soft-spoken giant who led Houston through tumultuous changes with grace and humility.

“If the young people I can leave behind are people who also have something to believe in and something that pushes them to do what’s best for the underprivileged, that’s what I would like to pass on,” said the Reverend. » Lawson said.

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