Who?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. When he was just two years old, Martin Luther King Sr. took the pastor position at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, replacing his father-in-law (Martin).This is when King’s strong Christian background began to emerge. His family, church, and school were the most important thing in King’s life as a child. King was quoted saying
There were also several instances that occurred when King was young that influenced his way of thinking in a negative way. For example starting at the age of five, King was influenced by witnessing soup lines during the Great Depression. At the age of six he felt what it was like to be subjected to racism. The father of one of his white friends banned his son from playing with King because he was a child of color (Moses, 10). Despite these negative events in King’s young life, when he first entered public school, he proved to be an excellent young student (Bowling, 116).


Gandhi was one of the major influences on King’s operational philosophies. Gandhi believed on solving problems, big and small, with out using violence. Gandhi’s philosophy and technique of Satyagraha is the resistance to tyranny through truth and nonviolence (Misra 21). Truth, nonviolence, and Ahimsa, or love, are the bases of Satyagraha. Truth is the fullest possible concordance of one’s experience of a fact or and event or a thought by one’s senses and reason which one believes with one’s whole being as a witness (Misra, 32). Nonviolence is non-injury to any living creature by thought, word and deed in its negative aspect, and love or identity of interest with the ‘others’ in its positive aspect. All life is one (Misra, 32).

Gandhi believed that if injustice blocked the path of individuals or a community from living normal, free from fear lives, then they should adopt Satyagraha as a weapon. They should insist on truth being established and resist all authority or source of evil with nonviolence. He felt that conflict of interests are inevitable, but he believed that the ultimate interests of all are one and therefore, one should strive hard to see that no violence occurs, no destruction takes place, no bitterness is generated, and a solution is found which is just to both sides (Misra, 35). Gandhi’s moral law applies equally to all people, whether you are a common citizen, merchant, lawyer, politician, or a solider (Misra 24). He felt that until people can see that all human life is an integrated whole, there could be no peace in the world (Misra, 24).

"Martin Luther King." NobelPrize.Org. 6 Feb. 2007 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html.
Bowling, Lawson. Shapers of the Great Debate on the Great Society; A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Misra, K.P., S.C. Gangal. Gandhi and the Contemporary World. Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1981.