Rice University has announced it will name part of its campus central quadrangle The Reverend William A. Lawson Grove in honor of the esteemed community leader’s contributions to the university and the city of Houston.

“With voice and vision, Rev. William Lawson has influenced the life circumstances of generations as one of Houston’s most important advocates for justice,” Leebron said.

“Through his leadership of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, the William A. Lawson Institute for Peace and Prosperity and as a significant presence in the civil rights struggle, he has lived out and advocated for moral and ethical principles representing human potential at its best,” Leebron said.

“We are so proud of the important contributions he and our late mother, Audrey Hoffman Lawson, made throughout their lives to this great city, always working to help Houston become diverse and inclusive.

A year later, Martin Luther King Jr. visited Houston, and according to Lawson, almost none of the city’s black churches welcomed the civil rights leader because FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had accused King of being a communist.