James Rupert Lawson (June 5, 1918 – July 9, 1985) was an African-American activist who founded the United African Nationalist Movement, an anti-imperialist lobbying group based in Harlem, advocating freedom for Africans from rule by non-Africans in the post World War II era. A follower of the ideas of Marcus Garvey, he was associated with "black nationalist" ideology in the 1950s and 1960s.