Two twentieth century leaders who have continued to influence non-violent social protest movements internationally are Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.Of different races and cultures, born on opposite sided of the world in nations vastly different in wealth and technology, these two aggressive men in their later years shared the philosophy of non-violent, but direct, action and expended their lives in pursuit of peaceful solution to social inequities.An examination of their lives,consequently, reveals both similarities and differences in their family background, ideology, and plans for social action.
The family backgrounds of two men show obvious parallels and also striking differences.Gandhi was a Hindu of the Baniyu {Trading} castle; his father,nevertheless, was the chief minister of the small state of Kathiawad. Gandhi broke with the tradition of his family and went to study in England at the age of 19, where he had his first contact with Western culture.Although he read and studied the Bible with interest,he became more deeply convinced of the logicality and profundity of the Hindu religion. King was a Black American born into a family of Christian ministers. His father was a pastor of a church which his father-in-law has founded many years ago before.Unlike Gandhi, King decided to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and study for the ministry.It was only after studying the philosophic of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, and finally Gandhi, that he began to formulate his own philosophy.Which was similar in many respects to Gandhi's.Early environment,family tradition, and study at some points similar but at most points different,shaped the characters of Gandhi and King and formed their expectations for their societies and their people
Both Gandhi and King believed that their aims could be achieved through non-violent means.they held a common ideology of non-violence.This common ideology of non-violence was not to...