The Impact of Gandhi on American Society Through Martin Luther King Jr.
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Most Americans know little about Hinduism and few imagine that the values of Hinduism had any influence on the development of American society. But what little they do know of Hinduism is most likely derived from their knowledge of Mahatma Gandhi. Few Americans realize that Gandhis teachings and lifes work had a tremendous impact on the development of American society during the Civil Rights Movement.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, known to the world as The Mahatma, or the “Great Soul”, brought a great gift to the modern world. That gift was the light of Non-Violence, of Service to the Community and of Social Justice. His life served as an example and this light became a torch which illuminated our world and which saved us from our own inhumanity to each other.
The torch was carried by many hands. They included Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, the principal of Morehouse College, who returned from India as one of the growing number of African-American disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. When Dr. King entered Morehouse at the age of 15, Dr. Mays became one of the great influences in his life. And there, the torch was passed on. In February of 1959, Dr. and Coretta Scott King spent a month in India studying Gandhis March techniques of nonviolence as guests of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The impact of Gandhis teaching and example on Dr. Kings life was considerable, and he carried Gandhis message with him back to America.
Dr. King once told a story of his visit to India to the congregation of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Dr. King told the members of his church, “I remember when Coretta Scott King and I were in India, we journeyed down one afternoon to the southernmost part of India to the city of Trivandrum in Kerala. That afternoon I was to speak at a school, what would be the equivalent of what we call a high school in this country. This particular school was attended by and large by students who were the children of former untouchables.
“The principal of the school introduced me and then as he came to the conclusion of his introduction, he said, Young people, I would like to present to you a fellow untouchable from the United States of America,. And for a moment, I was a bit shocked and even peeved that I would be referred to as an untouchable.
“I started thinking about the fact that twenty million of my brothers and sisters were still smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in an affluent society. As I thought about this, I finally said to myself, Yes, I am an untouchable, and every negro in the United States is an untouchable.” In 1959, Dr. King gave a sermon on the life of Gandhi in Birmingham Alabama. In that sermon, Dr. King says “The world doesnt like people like Mahatma Gandhi. Thats strange, isnt it? They dont like people like Christ, nor do they like people like Lincoln. They killed Gandhi – this man who had done all of that for India, who gave his life and who mobilized and galvanized 400 million people for independence. One of his own fellow Hindus felt that he was a little too favorable to Muslims, felt that he was giving too much to the Muslims.
“Here was the man of non-violence, falling at the hands of a man of violence. Here was a man of love falling at the hands of a man with hate. This seems the way of history. And isnt it significant