Similarities Between Martin Luther King Jr And Mahatma Gandhi

In society there are theoretical paths that exist based on time and place. These societal paths may have the same appearance and may even cross each other, but each path has its own road that it takes people on. Civil Disobedience is portrayed in time by two immensely influential emancipators: Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The belief of civil disobedience is that in order to diminish an unruly leadership one must bring an end to legally executed injustice, through being peaceful and intransigent. Many credible scholars have noted the similarities between the civil right movements of Martin Luther King Jr. and the philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi. Evidently, these two men both have common themes. King and Gandhi both concur in their

was a renowned civil rights activist in America during the 1950’s and 1960’s. He used a seemingly new and unprecedented technique called nonviolence. Many consider Reverend King as a martyr toward the cause of racial equity. Other activists during this time of hypocrisy and racism in a modern western democracy were quick to justify the use of violence as a means of solving racism. A precedent of movements that used violence was the Black Panther and The Black Muslim movements. These militant political movements accused King of being too much like an “Uncle Tom”, an epithet for a person who’s often submissive to prominent authority figures, they repeatedly derided him to use more radical forces and tactics to create social change. Nonetheless, King continued to use nonviolence as his major means of initiate social change. He led marches through cities across America. As a result, Reverend King had found himself in jail on more than one occasion. Many were baffled by King’s persistence to use non-violence, however King had already witnessed its application in India by Mahatma

The courageous revolutionaries would endure physical and mental torment. “From May 2 to May 10, 1963, the nation bore witness as police in Birmingham, Ala., aimed high-powered hoses and sicced snarling dogs on black men, women and even children.” (Siemaszko) Those men women and children in Birmingham, Alabama had to courage to stand in front of authority and not fight back the cruel acts of the police. By staying there and not giving up the fight for their rights they proved that they have the utmost courage. Gandhi felt that non-violence was the only was and expressed this when he said,“One person who can express nonviolence in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality. My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world.”(Gandhi). Gandhi felt as if every individual can be non-violent and by doing so they would be spreading it to the people around them. Through violence more violence is created, there is never an end. Gandhi had once said,”An eye for and makes the whole world go blind.”(Gandhi). By fighting back it creates a chain of violence that will never end and there will be no compromise.Gandhi believed that