Thoreau, Gandhi and King

Today as we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King I was moved to make this triptych image to illustrate the spiritual genesis of Dr. Kings Non-Violent philosophy. It is well known that King was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s successes using nonviolent resistance. King argued that the Gandhian philosophy was ‘‘the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom’’.

What is perhaps not so well known is that Gandhi was deeply influenced by the American writer Henry David Thoreau whose book ‘Walden; or, Life in the Woods’ was required reading when I was a High School student in the 1970’s. Thoreau’s lesser known ‘On Civil Disobedience’ came to Gandhi’s attention while working his first job as a lawyer for an Indian company in South Africa. The ruling white Boers discriminated against all people of color. Gandhi became an outspoken critic of South Africa’s discrimination policies. When the Boer legislature passed a law requiring that all Indians register with the police and be fingerprinted, Gandhi refused to obey the law. He was arrested and jailed. While in jail, Gandhi read the essay “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau.

​Gandhi adopted the term “civil disobedience” to describe his strategy of non-violently refusing to cooperate with injustice, although in later years he preferred the Sanskrit word satyagraha “devotion to truth”.  I find it delightfully ironic that an American writer’s work should find its way to Africa and influence a man who changed the history of the Indian sub-continent and then found its way back to America where it continued to be profoundly influential. Today I celebrate all three of these spiritual giants.
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