30 Jan
1958
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Montgomery, Alabama.
Dear Martin:
First of all let me say it was a real pleasure getting acquainted with you after having been an admirer of yours from a long distance.
I am enclosing an article from The Christian Century which may interest you
if you haven’t seen it a l r e a d ~ . ~
I had the chance to speak briefly with Chester Bowles the other evening and
your name figured prominently in our discussion. I understand that Bowles will
refer to you in a forthcoming article in the Saturday Evening Post.5
I am also enclosing a copy of the letter I am sending to Paul Douglas.
I hope that our paths will cross much more often in the future.
Sincerely,
[signed] Paul
Paul Simon
PS/r
TLS. DABCC.
4. Simon refers to his article, “Montgomery Looks Forward,”which summarized the December Institute in Montgomery (Christian Century 75 [ P P January 19581: 104-log).
5. In this article the former ambassador to India compared the methods of the Montgomery bus
boycott with Gandhi’s use of civil disobedience in South Africa and India, and praised the adaptation
of Candhian principles to the American racial situation (Bowles, “What Negroes Can Learn from
Gandhi,”SaturdayEveningPost, 1 March 1958, pp. 19-21,87,89).
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
“His Influence Speaks To World Conscience”
30 January 1958
New DeIhi, India
This tribute, marking the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi,
uppearedjointly in the Hindustan Times and Peace News.’ King reveals GandhiS
1 . See King, “More than any other person in history. . . Peace News (31 January 1958), p. P. This
issue of Peace News, “A Decade Without Gandhi,” included articles by William Stuart Nelson, A. Philip
Randolph, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
,‘I
354
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
profound influence on his thinking about social change, recalling that “whenI was in
theological school, I thought the only way we could solve our problem of segregation
was an armed revolt. ’’
30 Jan
1958
Mahatma Gandhi has done more than any other person of history to reveal
that social problems can be solved without resorting to primitive methods of violence. In this sense he is more than a saint of India. He belongs-as they said of
Abraham Lincoln-to the ages. In our struggle against racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, I came to see at a very early stage that a synthesis of Gandhi’s
method of non-violence and the Christian ethic of love is the best weapon available to Negroes for this struggle for freedom and human dignity. It may well be
that the Gandhian approach will bring about a solution to the race problem in
America. His spirit is a continual reminder to oppressed people that it is possible
to resist evil and yet not resort to violence.
The Gandhian influence in some way still speaks to the conscience of the world
as nations grapple with international problems. Ifwe fail, on an international scale,
to follow the Gandhian principle of non-violence, we may end up by destroying
ourselves through the misuse of our own instruments. The choice is no longer between violence and non-violence. It is now either non-violence or non-existence.
Oppressed people can deal with oppression in three ways. They can accept or
acquiesce. Under segregation they can adjust to it. Yet non-co-operation with evil
is as much a moral obligation as is co-operation with good. The minute one accepts segregation, one co-operates with it. Oppressed people can, on the other
hand, resort to physical violence, a method both whole nations and oppressed
peoples have used. But violence merely brings about a temporary victory and not
permanent peace. It creates ever new problems. Gandhi has come on the scene
of history with still another way. He would resist evil as much as the man who uses
violence, but he resists it without external violence or violence of the spirit. That
is what Gandhism does. It is a method of the strong. If the only alternative is between cowardice and violence, it is better-as Gandhi said-to use violence, but
there is another way.
I myself gained this insight from Gandhi. When I was in theological school, I
thought the only way we could solve our problem of segregation was an armed revolt. I felt that the Christian ethic of love was confined to individual relationships.
I could not see how it could work in social conflict. Then I read Gandhi’s ethic of
love as revealed in Jesus but raised to a social strategy for social transformation.
This lifts love from individual relationships to the place of social transformation.
This Gandhi helped us to understand and for this we are grateful a decade after
his death.
[Newspapereditor’s note:] A Baptist clergyman in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. King has
been called “the American Gandhi” for his leadership of the Montgomery Improvement
Association in its successful campaign against bus segregation using non-violent methods.
PD.Hindustan Times, 30 January 1958.
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