Gandhi and Martin Luther King

The teachings in R.S1 greatly influenced both Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was a man who helped the country of India to independence.

More importantly he did this without ever using violence. The fact that he never used violence helped, because, India got sympathy from other countries.Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in India, he got married at the age of thirteen, and then in 1888 he went to England to study law. Three years later he passed his law examinations and enrolled as a barrister.

This would help him later on in life when he was in court for the breaking the law.Gandhi's first effort to get equal treatment for Indians was in South Africa where all Indians that lived there had to carry identification papers. To try and get equal treatment he incited people to burn their identification papers, (he also burnt his own.)The thing that made Gandhi try and get equal treatment for all Indians was when he was travelling to Pretoria by train. He had bought a first class ticket, but he was asked to move to a third class compartment. He refused and got thrown out onto the platform.

He refused to be moved down to third class because he had been in England for three years and was still used to the way of life over there. (Not to say that there was no racism at all in England at that time, just to say that it was a lot better.) After this, he decided to stay in Africa and improve the conditions for Indians living there.He invented two words for his method of fighting, (as he didn't believe in violence, they were obliviously not violent ways of fighting.

) And they were satyagraha, which means standing up for something you're convinced is right, and ahimsa, which means love operating through non- violence.Gandhi would have thought this because of Hindu beliefs and the fact that he had also studied Christianity that teaches to love thy neighbour. Because he believed this it meant that he could never be violent and he always encouraged others to be non violent.For the next twenty years he Gandhi fought to obtain equal for Indians. He often had to go to prison for breaking laws, (which Gandhi thought were unjust laws.

)In 1896 his search for religious faith became more earnest and he had talked to Christians and Muslims. Gandhi could see that there was truth in all religions. It is because of this that his beliefs are not all strictly Hindu because there is a lot about Hinduism that he did not like. He didn't like the dressed temples made to look nice and he also disliked the animal sacrifices.

He once had visited Christian missionary community and the atmosphere of peace impressed him. Later in his life he would try and create a community like that for himself.Gandhi may have tried to improve the life of Indians created the community, etc, to try and improve his karma. He would've wanted to improve his karma so that he would have a better rebirth or go into enlightenment. Gandhi believed that ahimsa and satyagraha would improve his (and others who obeyed it,) karma. This is why he may want to have been a good Hindu in his lifetime.

However, I think that he was trying to get equal rights because he thought it was wrong rather then just doing it to get good karma.When there was a riot on between Hindus and Muslims in 1924 Mahatma Gandhi went on a three week fast to stop it, even though he was still not fully recovered from an appendicitis operation. When he was on the brink of death Muslim and Hindu leaders all over India urge their followers to live in peace. The fact that Gandhi fasted for that long, when he was already in ill health, so he could get Hindus and Muslims to stop fighting shows how he was completely committed to keeping peace and being completely against violence.

Gandhi also had shown his example of non-violence successfully to other Indians during the salt march. What happened was this, Britain still ruled over India in 1929, and there was a law stating that that Indians weren't allowed to make there own salt. This was so they were forced to depend on the government supply of salt. So, on 12 March 1930, Gandhi and eighty disciples all marched to the sea.

It took twenty-four days and by the time they had got there, thousands had joined the march. When they got there they prayed throughout the night for the strength to resist the violence, which could easily have swept the crowd. In the morning, Gandhi and thousands of other Indian peasants, illegally made salt. The police made many arrests but there was not a hint of trouble from the Indian people.

Also Gandhi and thousands of others were sent to prison for infringing on the salt laws. Not long after that the manufacture of salt was permitted and political prisoners were freed.I think the main reason that Gandhi did this was to attract the attention of the world about India's problems, but it is also a good example of how the Indian were now trying to be non-violent like Gandhi himself.On January 30 1948 Gandhi was assonated. In his lifetime he had greatly helped India and Pakistan get Independence within the British Commonwealth.

Another person whose religious beliefs greatly affected his actions and influenced his life was Martin Luther King.Martin Luther King was a Christian and his father was the minister of a large church in Atlanta, so he would have been taught to love thy neighbour and not to kill, and other Christian teachings, however, he may have been justified to think that violence as self-defence or violence in a just war when it is the last option was alright. However Martin Luther King didn't agree with violence, and he, (like Mahatma Gandhi,) decided to try and get equal rights without using violence. Only this time he was trying to get equal rights for black people living in America.

The reason why he may have wanted to try and get equal rights for black people may have been because several things. One was the diversion of black people from white people. For example, when Martin Luther King was a young boy, his two best friends were two white boys and they played together everyday. However, when Marin Luther King was six, the white boys had to go to an all white school and Marin Luther King had to go to an all blacks school.

His friends' mother kept telling him that they could not play together anymore.The reason why there was this diversity between black people and white people was because black people used to be slaves for white people and quite a lot of white people still looked down on them. This is why there were still lots of white only whites only schools, cafes, cinemas and even churches and that is partly the reason why Martin Luther King was trying to get equal rights for black people.As a teenager Martin Luther King was a pupil at Morehouse College and the head teacher there was a man called Dr Mays and he was a church minister.

Martin Luther King noticed that when he preached he often talked about being fair to others, and about people being equal. Marin low wanted to really help people with their lives, he also wanted to help them understand the teachings of Jesus. This shows how his Christians teachings encouraged him to try and help people.So when he was seventeen he decided that he would become a church minister, so in 1948 he went to college for those who wanted to become a minister.Interestingly enough, this is where Martin Luther King became interested in the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, this may be partly were Martin got the idea of trying to get equal rights for black people living in the United States by using non-violence.When he had finished his training he became the minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama.

There was also a big division between blacks and whites in Montgomery. For example, the front seats of all the buses were kept for the white passengers. Even if the front seats were all empty and the rear seats were full, black people had to stand at the back.On 1 December 1955, a black woman called Rosa Parks got on her bus after a busy day of working and shopping.

She found an empty seat at the beginning of the black passenger section. Then, at the next stop, some white people got on and the bus driver ordered Mrs Parks to give up her seat for a white passenger. She refused and the bus driver phoned a policeman who arrested her. After this, a number of black church ministers and leaders in Montgomery met to discuss what they would do about the matter.

What they came up with was a bus boycott. This meant that they would encourage all the black people they could to not use the buses.It worked, on Monday, 5 December, nearly all of the buses on Montgomery had no black people on them. Most of the buses were nearly empty, they usually had just one or two white people on them.This is the first example of black Americans united to protest of the unfair way they were treated. However, at the end of 1956, the United States Supreme made a decision to make, keeping black people and white people apart on buses, illegal.

Most white people accepted the change, however others were angry. The main reason the rule was changed was because the buses had lost so much money, just because black people weren't going on them.There were a lot of points of Martin Luther King's life that would not have been the same had he not been a Christian. For example, during the bus-boycotting period, Martin Luther King had lots of threatening phone calls, letters and other messages. This obliviously made him feel like he could not carry on with it anymore, so he prayed. And after he did he heard a voice inside his head saying, "Stand up for what's right.

Stand up for truth. God will be on your side forever."Martin Luther King believed that this was God's voice telling him to carry on. Had Martin Luther King not been a Christian he may have never carried on trying to get equal rights for all black Americans.

Martin Luther King was killed in 1968 in Memphis Tennessee. Before he died he had also accomplished lots of other achievements, like winning the Nobel Peace Prize and in August 1965 blacks had the same rights to vote as whites did.