Gandhi once said, “An eye-for-an-eye makes the whole world blind.” What he meant is that fighting violence with violence helped no one. During his lifetime, Gandhi fought against oppressive British rule in India, and his journey was known throughout the world. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela both shared Gandhi’s thirst for freedom, basing their respective movements for peace on Gandhi’s. All three men fought peacefully for equality, whether it was for India’s freedom from the British empire, emancipation from apartheid laws that prohibited black Africans from being truly free, or liberation from Jim Crow laws to keep black Americans inferior to whites. Dr. King and Gandhi were both assassinated, but they did accomplish their goals …show more content…
This method worked because it peacefully angered oppressors, allowed people of all races and ethnicities to participate, and involved leaders persuaded people to make sacrifices for the greater good. One of the reasons peaceful protesting worked so well was that it irritated enemies of the cause without the use of violence. Boycotts and sanctions were one effective method of angering the oppressive governments. Gandhi staged a hartel in India and Martin Luther King Jr. helped start the Montgomery Bus Boycott in America (Doc A and B). The sanctions enforced by Nelson Mandela in South Africa acted as a drain on the economy (Doc C). Dr. King also “took part in the lunch counter sit-ins . . . seeking to integrate lunch counters,” joining the black student protesters who refused to leave when demanded to and getting arrested (Doc E). Gandhi sent a letter to the British government telling them that he would stage a salt march whether they liked it or not unless they removed the unfair salt tax. (Doc D). This supports the image in document P, which shows Gandhi salting the tail of a British lion to …show more content…
While Nelson Mandela was traveling in secret, he hid “ with Muslims in the Cape; with sugar-workers in the Natal; with factory workers in Port Elizabeth” (Doc O). Mandela also said that “a group of several hundred Africans, Indians, and Coloured . . . [volunteered]” to be in his protests (Doc I). He hungered “for the freedom of all people, black and white” and tried to be inclusive (Doc R). A political cartoon in Document R depicts this hunger with a white man and a black man both raising their arms in victory. This image is meant to symbolize the freedom that both races would receive once South Africa became a democracy. Martin Luther King Jr. shared Nelson’s dream, going on to speak of true equality in his “I Have a Dream” speech, hoping for black and white men to “sit down together at a table of brotherhood” (Doc Q). The hospitality of white and black Americans did not fail to amaze him either (Doc N). By including people of so many racial and ethnic backgrounds, the leaders in nonviolent freedom fighting were able to show that their fight wasn’t just about one particular group. True equality is not just the freedom of one group at the cost of another. It is the freedom of all people. Nelson Mandela recognised this the necessity of true equality in his speech, and so did Dr. King. Both men knew the only way to earn the freedom they so desired was to