conversations through time

The main source where the relationship between King and Gandhi is spelled out by King himself is in his book Stride Towards Freedom. Here he relates how, as a college freshman, before being introduced to Gandhi, he read Thoreau's 'Essay on Civil Disobedience' and was 'fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system. I was so deeply moved that I reread the book several times. This was my first intellectual contact with the theory of non-violence resistance.'

In her autobiographical account of her life with King, his wife Coretta notes that he told her that the turning point of his thinking about how to reconcile Christian pacifism with activism came when he heard a lecture on Gandhi by one of his mentors, Dr Mordecai Johnson, the black president of Howard University, at Friendship Hall in Philadelphia in the spring of 1950. King found the message of the lecture to be 'so profound and electrifying' that he left the meeting and 'brought a half-dozen books on Gandhi's life and works'. And at this point he 'became deeply influenced by Gandhi, never realizing that I would live in a situation where it would be useful and meaningful'. A little while later he took a course at Crozer on the psychology of religion and for his research paper and oral presentation he chose to work on Gandhi. While Coretta King did not think that at this stage, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, 'he as yet consciously considered applying the Gandhian technique of nonviolence to the Negro Movement, the idea began germinating in his mind'. King records that as a result of this study of Gandhi,

The whole concept of 'Satyagraha was profoundly significant to me. As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform. Prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationship. The 'turn the other cheek' philosophy and the 'love your enemies' philosophy were only valid, I felt, when individuals were in conflict with other individuals; when racial groups and nations were in conflict a more realistic approach seemed necessary. But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was ... I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.

He added that,

My study of Gandhi convinced me that true pacifism is not non resistance to evil, but nonviolent resistance to evil. Between the two positions, there is a world of difference. Gandhi resisted evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resister, but he resisted with love instead of hate. True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power, as Niebuhr contends. 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 inflicter 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 of the heart. 

Thomas Weber, Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.169-171