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Gandhi and Rustin
With assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee and inspired by Gandhi’s success with non-violent activism, King visited Gandhi’s birthplace in India in 1959. The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America’s struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, “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. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”
African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin had studied Gandhi’s teachings. Rustin counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence, served as King’s main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism, and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin’s open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin. – Wikipedia
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr & Bayard Rustin – deeppencil dot com
Before meeting King, Rustin was a founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) which was formed in 1942.
CORE was conceived as a Pacifist organization based on the writings of Henry David Thoreau and modeled after Mohandas Gandhi’s non-violent resistance against British rule in India.
These principles of non-violence became the backbone of the SCLC and the personal philosophy of Dr King.
- Martin Luther King Jr Had a Gay Mentor – deeppencil dot com
