(RNS) — Christian colleges have been challenged to ‘become a school that no longer has students who are guests and hosts,’ one leader said. Dr. Mordecai Johnson gave the lecture while Dr. King was in seminary. Dr. Johnson, who had recently traveled to India, spoke about the life and teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
After completing his barrister’s degree he returned to India in 1891, but was unable to find well-paid work. King, who was known as the American Gandhi, went on what he called a “four-week pilgrimage in India, which to me means Mahatma Gandhi.” (AP Photo/R.
He and other black leaders organized a successful year-long boycott of Montgomery's buses that led to a U.S. Supreme Court case and, ultimately, victory. In a 1963 interview, Malcolm X accused King of working "to keep Negroes defenseless in the face of an attack."
Raised in the Southern black church, King lived, learned, and preached within the Christian cycle of suffering and redemption. (RNS) — Recently, my Muslim family joined a Hindu family and a Jewish family at a protest for racial equity near our home on the North Side of Chicago.
Though King's home was bombed, anonymous phone callers made threats, and King and others were jailed in mass arrests, King steadfastly preached tolerance. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. heard the president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson, speak about a trip he took to India in 1950, King was so inspired by the life and teachings of Mohandas Gandhi that he immediately began educating himself about the Indian leader.
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, president of Howard University and a respected orator, met with Gandhian leaders in 1949 in India. The fast elicited public attention and resulted in a historic 1947 resolution making the practice of discrimination against untouchables illegal. "Love your enemies," King surely read many times in the book of Matthew. Civil rights leader Andrew Young believes King's "I Have a Dream" speech "made the history not only of the civil rights movement... [but] helped get Nelson Mandela out of jail.
King, who was known as the American Gandhi, went on what he called a “four-week pilgrimage in India, which to me means Mahatma Gandhi.” (AP Photo/R. Though conceding that King's methods were effective, black psychologist Kenneth Clark called the philosophy of loving one's enemy "psychologically burdensome." Nevertheless, King's approach achieved success in Montgomery, Alabama, and other civil rights hot spots.Journalist David Halberstam described Martin Luther King as "a black Baptist Brahmin." He served as the first black president of Howard University, from 1926 until 1960.Johnson has been considered one of the three leading African-American preachers of the early 20th-century, along with Vernon Johns and Howard Thurman
After a year of struggle, Gandhi negotiated a truce with the British government’s representative, Lord Irwin, and ended the civil disobedience campaign. He studied martyrs like Jeremiah, whom he described as "a shining example of the truth that religion should never sanction the status quo." For example, in his famous sermon “A Time to Break Silence,” he said: “The Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality” is that love is the “supreme unifying principle of life.” We are witnessing a movement for racial equity that echoes some of the highest hopes of the civil rights movement, the struggle against apartheid, and the Hind Swaraj movement. In fact, there is no doubt that Gandhi inspired black people in America. The first African-American president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson visited India, studied the ideas of its freedom struggle. He had read about the pacifism of Jesus in the Bible but believed it to be advice relevant only to close personal relations. India’s lowest caste, within India’s new constitution.
"We must have compassion and understanding for those who hate us."
(1911) from Morehouse College and another B.A.
The first African-American president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson visited India, studied the ideas of its freedom struggle. )Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history.
"My Bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter," he once said, and he would refer to setbacks as the necessary midnights that would precede a dawn of shining equality and justice.King took many lessons from Christian teachings. He earned his BA from Atlanta Baptist College—now Viewed as a somewhat polarizing figure during his presidency at Howard, Johnson had what most close associates and relatives considered a “Messianic Complex.” One phrase he offered frequently on public occasions was, “The Lord told me to speak, but He did not tell me when to stop” (Logan, 249). Over 60,000 Indians eventually subjected themselves to imprisonment by making salt. Johnson's subsequent sermon on Gandhism in 1950 at Fellowship House, Philadelphia, was so inspirational to King that he immediately bought several books on Gandhi and began his own in-depth study of the man and his vision. Gandhi had a great effect on Chavez, too.
On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was assassinated while entering a prayer meeting in Delhi. "The potential and possibilities of non-violence in the movement were beyond anything that we could have ever thought of," recalled civil rights activist Rev.
It disturbs his conscience. (RNS) — Then too, a Democrat was charged with being godless.The Rev. This movement for racial justice is yet another opportunity for an interfaith coalition to come together and move forward together for a just world. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our