
Contributed by Rev. Dr. Trish Hall, Center for Spiritual Living
There are two people at the top of my list of heroes, Mohandus Gandhi, the Mahatma, and Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. I instantly became a “Gandhian” as a child, the first time I read about him and how he looked at the world differently from almost everyone and yet his way aligned with the depth of my being. What Gandhi stood for made sense to me at a soul level. When I discovered that Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, embraced Gandhi’s approach – that he recognized nonviolence as the right way (the only truly sustainable way) to confront the atrocities being perpetrated against blacks, I knew – again at the soul level – that I needed to take a stand and do whatever I could to support and further Dr. King’s work.
Recently, I was researching the relationship between King and Gandhi. I discovered that Dr King, eager to learn all he could about nonviolent resistance, had sought out Gandhi and his teachings. Dr King deeply connected with Gandhi’s approach and put it to work. Dr. King was the embodiment of nonviolent action.
My research revealed an article that was new to me in form, yet familiar to me in content. Dr King wrote the article, “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi,” four weeks after his return from a tour of India. It was published in Ebony in July 1959. Although Dr King’s trip to India took place 3 years after the great day of bus integration, December 21, 1956, he spoke often of how “India’s Gandhi” had been the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change while the Montgomery boycott was going on.
Dr King began his article … “… Even as a child the entire Orient held a strange fascination for me—the elephants, the tigers, the temples, the snake charmers and all the other storybook characters.” Dr King was a man of insatiable curiosity and wonder.
He shared that the trip had a great impact upon him personally. It had been humbling to be in Gandhi’s land, to talk with his son, his grandsons, his cousin and other relatives; to share the reminiscences of his close comrades; to visit his ashrama, to see the countless memorials for him and finally to lay a wreath on his entombed ashes at Rajghat. Dr King left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom. It was a marvelous thing for him to see the amazing results of a nonviolent campaign.
He was astounded that the usual aftermath of hatred and bitterness following a violent campaign were nowhere to be found. Instead, he discovered mutual friendship based on complete equality between the Indian and British people within the commonwealth.
Kingian Wisdom: The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.
Some assert that nonviolent resistance can only work in a situation where the resisters have a potential ally in the conscience of the opponent. Dr King disagreed and asserted that that perspective was completely wrong and arose from confusing passive resistance with nonresistance.
Kingian Wisdom: True nonviolent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflictor of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.
Nonviolent resistance does call for love, but it is not a sentimental love. It is a very stern love that would organize itself into collective action to right a wrong by taking on itself suffering.
Gandhi modeled how to live one’s beliefs by taking “untouchables” – those he renamed “Harijans” (“children of God”) – by the hand and leading them into the temples from which they had been excluded.
Seeing India through Dr King’s eyes expanded my sense of how deeply he embraced Gandhian teaching. I sensed his frustration that amid the poverty and overcrowding of India they had made more progress in dealing with the caste system than the US had with racial injustice. The difference he identified was that the foundation of their approach rested on moral ground – something lacking from the US approach.
Dr King walked with people in pursuit of freedom and equality. He called us out for having not made more progress and admonished us to heed the Indian example and resolve our blatant racial discrimination.
The article was written in 1959 – 65 years ago. How have we progressed? What grades would Dr. King put on our report card?
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
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