Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Deep Connection to Gandhi — How It All Began
MLK’s Road to Nonviolent Resistance, through Gandhi
If you know anything about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., you probably know that Gandhi had a profound influence on his commitment to nonviolence. Dr. King described how he came to this connection in his autobiography.
In the spring of 1950, while he was a theology student, he heard a speech on Mahatma Gandhi by Howard University president Mordechai Johnson, and he said the speech was “so profound and electrifying” that he “left the meeting and bought a half-dozen books on Gandhi’s life and works.”
But commitments typically don’t happen in a vacuum, and this was no exception. King’s spiritual and intellectual quest toward nonviolence was also informed by his Christian roots and various pacifist traditions, including the Quaker teachings.
He had read Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience, and the works of Protestant theologians, like Reinhold Niebuhr. Before his epiphany in 1950, King had also read Utilitarian philosophers, especially David Hume and John Stuart Mill, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, and J.J. Rousseau’s optimism. He rejected all of these because they didn’t give him the moral connection he sought.
What about Gandhi’s teaching touch MLL so deeply?
King explained his focus on Gandhi’s teaching:
“Gandhi was probably the first person in history to live the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals [turn the other cheek] to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.”
Dr. King, through Gandhi, came to see the “glaring reality of collective evil,” and that pacifism (specifically nonviolent resistance) was the appropriate response. He called pacifism:
“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 inflicter of it.”.
Confronting evil with violence, Dr. King said, just increases the amount of violence and creates bitterness in the universe. But being a passive recipient, as Gandhi was and taught, “develops a sense of shame in the opponent” and may bring a transformation and a change of heart.
The philosophy of Gandhi and that of Dr. King is based on the concept of Ahimsa, a belief prominent in several religions. Simply put, it means “not harming/non-violence,” but its opposite has the meaning of “reverence for life.”
In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1964, Dr. King said,
“…nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence witholut resorting to violence and oppression….nonviolence is not serile passivity, but a powerful moral froce which makes for social transformation.”
May your celebration of Martin Luther King Day be a contemplation on the importance of increasing the amount of nonviolence, peace, and kindness in the world so we can create, as he said, a way to live together on a foundation of love.
Be kind to one another. We’re all in this together.
