Mahatma Gandhi’s influence on Martin Luther King Jr

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." – these enlightening words were spoken by none other than the symbolic leader of the American Blacks and a global inspiration Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther’s historic speech ‘I have a dream’ (image source: the African Report)

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." – these enlightening words were spoken by none other than the symbolic leader of the American Blacks and a global inspiration Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1955, when Miss Rose Parks of Montgomery refused to obey the orders of the bus driver to vacate the seat for a white man, she was arrested and fined for breaking the law. This led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).

King made his mark on the MIA, by mobilizing black community during a 382-day boycott of bus services. They demanded better treatment for the blacks using public buses. E.D. Nixon, a union leader, and civil rights fighter, soon appointed Martin Luther King Jr. as the president of the MIA, believing that the latter’s exceptional leadership qualities and qualifications were the need of the hour.

Michael Luther King, later renamed Martin, was born on January 15, 1929, to a humble share-cropping family in Atlanta, Georgia. During his childhood, King and his two siblings would read aloud from the Bible as instructed by their father. Often their grandmother would tell them vivid Bible stories after dinner. King later went to Morehouse College, a historically black men’s liberal college in Georgia, and was highly influenced by the teachings of Benjamin E. Mays, a black theologian, and church historian. He was also deeply inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, the spiritual leader of India’s Freedom Struggle. Though the two never had the chance to meet, Martin Luther was immensely inspired by Gandhian teachings. He too believed that it is important to stand up against injustice but in a non-violent way and that only love can drive out hatred.

He often said, "From my background, I gained my regulating Christian ideals, from Gandhi, I learned my operational technique".

Gandhi's greatest contribution to history, and the reason he had such a significant influence on King, was to challenge the axiom that nonviolence equates to passivity. His discovery of Gandhi taught him that fighting for Black people's civil rights could be accomplished not with guns and bombs, nor with lies and propaganda, but rather with love and truth.

In 1957, King and other black clergymen formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to popularize and coordinate the idea of non-violent civil rights protests in the South.

The SCLC was uniquely equipped to communicate at the grass-root level. The leaders wrapped political ideas in theological jargon that black people could understand, and they used Christian beliefs to give the civil rights movement a divine approbation. Its ultimate goal was integration through the philosophy of Non-violence. King was soon elected as the President of the SCLC.

For the rest of his life, King came to be identified with the SCLC movement. In the first three years, it engaged with doubling the number of registered black voters in the South.

In 1959, King made his own pilgrimage to India to honor Gandhi and met with the members of Gandhi’s family. He even met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who had been Gandhi’s primary ally in the struggle for Indian Independence for decades.

In 1963, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, for fair hiring practices and desegregation of department-store facilities. The use of police brutality against the protestors drew worldwide attention. King was arrested for his involvement, but his voice was not silent. He wrote an open letter “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, in which he stated that people have a moral responsibility to break free from unjust ordinances and take direct action rather than waiting, potentially, forever for justice to come through the courts.

The Birmingham demonstrations were now pushed to a well-choreographed climax by King, who sent hundreds of black schoolchildren into direct confrontation with white police. The rest of the United States was enraged, and the world was appalled, by the events in Birmingham, as reported in the press and on television. Finally, the Justice Department started negotiations between the SCLC and the city government which emancipated the people of Birmingham from the shackles of segregation, allowing them to pursue racial equality. The demonstrations of Martin Luther King Jr. acted as a catalyst for both reform and restoration of harmony.

On August 28, 1963, about 200,000 to 300,000 from all ethnic backgrounds converged in the capital Washington which became a breakpoint in the American Civil Rights Movement and also, influenced the American Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is here that from the steps of Lincoln Memorial, he delivered his famous speech ‘I have a dream’ which is considered as one of the greatest speeches of 20th century. He declared his desire for a world of peace in which all men are treated equally.

Until his death on April 4, 1968, when he was assassinated, King remained strong in his commitment to nonviolent activism as a means of transforming American society. His vision of justice evolved from the crusade of civil rights to the arena of human rights.

Perhaps King would have become a prominent leader even if Gandhi had never lived, and he would have figured out a way to embrace Christian love and peace while still being able to stand up to evil and injustice. But it's safe to assume that King and the Movement would have been considerably different if the Indian spiritual teacher hadn't influenced them.

Martin Luther’s historic speech ‘I have a dream’ (image source: the African Report)