AMERICAN GANDHI
Although slavery in the United States ended in the late 19th C, institutionalized racism continued to oppress African Americans even decades later. By the mid-20th C, they were still forced to use separate public utilities and schools from whites, they suffered routine discrimination in employment, housing and were unable to fully exercise their right to vote. It was in this environment, seeing the possibility of an America where black and white citizens were truly equal, that Martin Luther King, Jr. joined in the fight for Civil Rights for Black Americans. As the historian Sudarshan Kapur has noted, Howard Thurman, Benjamin Mays, Channing Tobias, James Farmer and James Lawson were among the Afro-American students of Gandhi who had travelled to India. Before the emergence of King as Civil Rights Leader. Indeed, leader like King did choose to live out the gospel of peace, justice & love that Thurman so eloquently proclaimed in writing and the spoken word, even though it came with an exacting price.
King knew discrimination first when his white friend’s father didn’t let him play with his son. King’s mother explained how the practice of human bondage ended with the Civil War & about separate facilities, divided waiting rooms, sitting in the back of buses, separate drinking fountains, different doctors’ office, restaurants and the balconies of theatres where ‘coloured’ could sit etc. This hit very hard on his child heart.
Further while walking for freedom just like, Gandhi began the nonviolent deliverance of India by a massive people’s march to the sea. Many years later, when abuse and insults grew intolerable in Montgomery, the tradition of walking in protest for human rights was revived. Bus segregation in Montgomery was crushed under 50,000 marching feet. The boycott was a resounding success and Dr. King’s peaceful leadership had brought about a huge social change. In many ways, the Montgomery bus boycott kicked off a national struggle to eliminate racial discrimination, with King leading the way.
“I would say that after he returned, He was the most prominent living advocate for nonviolence,” says Carson about King’s Gandhian influence and action. “He popularized a lot of the ideas that Gandhi had, but through King, they spread throughout the United States and, of course, came to other parts of the world.”
On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee, while on a trip advocating for black sanitary workers' rights. His death led to panic and riots across the country, but did not derail the civil rights movement from fighting for the equality of African Americans. In the decades since his assassination, activists have continued to work to end racial discrimination in the United States.
Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia in Baptist family his father and grandfather were Baptist preachers who had been actively involved in the civil rights movement. While at seminary King became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent social protest. He was an eloquent Baptist minister & leader of the civil-rights movement in America from the Mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. He promoted non-violent means to achieve civil-rights reform and was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
In the 11th grade, he won an Oratorical Contest for his delivery of a speech, ‘The Negro and the Constitution’. Returning with his teacher by bus, they were forced by the bus driver to give up their seats when white passengers boarded. The two of them were jostled as they stood in the aisle for the trip & it was the angriest moment of his life.
According to James H. Cone, King’s theology didn’t develop overnight or come from whole cloth through another source. It developed over years and from sources as diverse as Transcendentalism, Gandhi, the black church and a string of theologians, both his forerunners and his contemporaries. King studied Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau in seminary, it wasn’t until he had a church pulpit that he put their philosophies into play. During the Montgomery bus boycott, King referred to Gandhi frequently, calling him “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk is what Martin Luther King. Jr said about him. King accepted nonviolent struggle as a tool to fight against discrimination, as Afro-Americans put on their walking shoes and marched, organized boycotts, faced police dogs, were injured by the jets of water hoses, sustained beatings and were jailed without bail. The central imperative in Christianity- expressed as ‘God is Love’, in much the way Gandhi saw God as Truth.
Later, March to Washington for voting rights it led to the passage of significant civil rights legislation. King and the SCLC organized drives for Afro-American voter registration, desegregation, and better education and housing throughout the South.
King not only embodied the hopes and dreams of Afro Americans, but also those of white progressives across the country. He also worked to put a united face on the civil rights movement, serving as a bridge-builder between different activist groups at a time when Americans were increasingly interested in ideas of liberation and equality. As a civic leader and human rights defender, King drew heavily upon the writings and actions of Gandhi for inspiration. King felt such a strong connection to Gandhi that he visited India in 1959. To better understand Gandhian principles, King took a one-month trip to India at the beginning of 1959 & met with members of the Gandhi family and activists influenced by him. “Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity,”- King said in a radio address in India.
In January 1963 Dr. King announced he and the Freedom Fighters would go to Birmingham to fight the segregation laws. An injunction was issued forbidding any demonstrations and Dr. King and the others were arrested. The police retaliated with water hoses, tear gas and dogs. All this happened in the presence of television news cameras. It would be the 1st time the world would see the brutality that the southern Afro-Americans bore. This is where Dr. King delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech.
On March 7, 1965 Dr. King led a march from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting reforms. 600 marchers would begin the march but after 6 blocks the marchers were met by tear gas advanced on them as a battle zone. The marchers were driven back while on the sidewalks whites cheered. 2 ministers, were slew and over 70 were hurt with 17 hospitalized. This event is known as BLOODY SUNDAY. On August 6, 1965 a voting rights bill was passed allowing Afro-Americans to vote. King and his fellow Civil Rights Fighters faced often brutal opposition from local officials and police forces in Southern cities, civil rights opponents, and white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. King was arrested 30 times for his civil rights activities.
In his 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, King laid out the principles of nonviolence he’d employed during the boycott. He affirmed that ‘it is possible to resist evil without resorting to violence and to oppose evil itself without opposing the people committing evil’, people who practice nonviolence must be willing to suffer without retaliation, internal or external: “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.” King told a crowd in Brooklyn: “Christ showed us the way, and Gandhi in India showed it could work.” King simply connected Gandhi with Jesus’s thoughts by saying, I came to see for the first time that the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a heroic mission to educate, awaken and revolutionize the American people to fight the injustices inflicted upon Afro-Americans. Like Gandhi, he fought the injustices with love, respect, and non-violent protest, besides common personal feelings about right and wrong, a common influence in the lives of both Dr. King and Gandhi was Thoreau's Essay on Civil Disobedience. The civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s &’60s was the embodiment of Gandhi’s ideas of nonviolent protest. Both Gandhi & Dr. King have been idolized worldwide as the first leaders of mass nonviolent movements in India and America, respectively. Their ability to lead the masses through unproven paths offers lessons relevant even today and it is worthwhile to examine their leadership qualities. King was the person primarily responsible for popularizing Gandhian ideas in the United States, and he convinced many black Americans that these ideas could be effective in attacking white racial domination. However, a key difference between them was that Dr. King would reprimand his juniors for an ill performed task whereas Gandhi never admonished his colleagues. Hence, many know King as “American Gandhi”.
That’s how Martin Luther King Jr led huge mission on his shoulder by walking on the way shown by someone who is unforgettable not just because of his thoughts but because of his works, cloths and behaviour.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi commonly known as BAPU, left a heritage behind him of his work and idea which won’t get old or not acceptable till people remember a man in white dhoti and very thin by physic but tough by thoughts.
Bibliography: -
Nojeim, Michael J. Gandhi and King: The Power of Nonviolent Resistance, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004.
Comments
Post a Comment