A look at how the teachings of Ghandi influenced the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
The paper examines the book ?Raising Up A Prophet: The African-American Encounter With Gandhi? by Sudarshan Kapur, which describes how African-Americans became aware of Gandhi and used the ideas of his movement to facilitate the desegregation of America. The paper shows how African-American journals and newspapers like ‘The Crisis’ and ‘The Chicago Defender’, helped bring the effects of the Gandhian movement in India to the United States.
“?Watch the people of India,? is a phrase taken from a piece in the Chicago Defender by Mary Church Terrel. In “Raising Up A Prophet: The African-American Encounter WIth Gandhi” by Sudarshan Kapur, Terrel’s advice outlines the first step toward African-American freedom. Kapur’s book describes how African-Americans became aware of Gandhi, and used the ideas of his movement to facilitate the desegregation of America. From this we can see the notion that a leader of desegregation (Martin Luther King Jr.) was born from an understanding and combination of Christianity and the methods of Gandhi.”