Non-violence with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

History has shown people that many people have struggled to get where they are today and most might have fought and committed violent acts to get what they wanted, but there are some that used the non-violent way to achieve their goals. Non-violence isn't something that today we here much about, but back in Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.'s time non-violence was the key. There were both positive and negative attributes that they used in their teachings and some of the negative attributes lead them to miss their mark in some way. However all of their struggles and movements did not go down in history without being remembered they are now legacies that cannot be forgotten.

When looking back at all the non-violence movements that has taken place throughout history one would have to start wondering if the ideas and principles of non-violence still remain today. In my personal opinion I don not believe that non-violence still remains alive today. Keep in mind that this is coming from an American view only. The reasons behind my opinion are the way people protest today. They may start out as having a peaceful protest, but something usually always goes wrong and violence begins to break out between the crowds themselves or with the police that are trying to break up the protests. We can also see that non-violence ideas are dead because of American's situation with Iraq right now. If the ideas of non-violence still existed the U.S. would not have troops stationed there still fighting an on going conflict. The more non-violent approach would have been sitting down and coming to a peaceful agreement without any fighting taking place. People today are mainly stuck on getting things that they want right when they want it and do not want to have to wait to get it. So with these kinds of attitudes people begin to start demanding and take action right away without patiently waiting and trying to get around conflict situations by being nice and turning the other cheek. With all the violence that people today are exposed to they begin thinking that being violent is the best way to solve most problems and that it is ok to do things that way. Instead of turning the other cheek like they use to back in non-violent movements of the past, today people do not want to turn the other cheek, but want to hit the people in their way cheeks.

When looking at non-violent movements people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi come to mind. Both of these two en lead social movements with the use of non-violent acts to help gain equality. However they both had positive and negative attributes within their teachings. Gandhi's positive attributes can be found mainly in the type of man he was and his beliefs. Gandhi believed that by using non-violence that anything could be accomplished. He thought that if people relied on non-violence that the people they were up against would become tired of committing violent acts and would see that they were wrong in there actions. He also believed in sticking to traditional ways of life. He would encourage people not to use things from their oppressors, but to provide themselves with those kind of items, such as home spun clothing and homemade salt. The negative attributes that can be found of Gandhi's was his inability to successfully make everyone happy and by his teaching making people go to extremes, which sometimes got them into terrible situations. Gandhi did all he could to help the people become equal, but some seen him favoring different people over others. This is not exactly true because he wanted the best for everyone, but his teachings and ideas were not always perfect. Since he was not always perfect some people took things he said wrong and went to extremes that ended up getting them violently killed. Martin Luther King Jr. also had positive attributes that came mainly from the type of man he was and what he believed in. King was a minister, which accounts for how he went about preaching to the people instead of just telling them things. King believed in things such as everyman was created equal through the eyes of God and that no one should be mistreated by the color of their skin. King mainly followed most of the things that Gandhi used in his teachings and his movements. King would tell people they had the right to do as they wanted and as long as they were not violent or breaking a law they could do what they pleased so he organized sit ins and boycotts. These things limited the business that was being brought in so sooner or later things had to change so business could continue. The negative side of his teachings were that like in Gandhi's situation people took the idea of being able to do things they wanted just as long as they were not breaking laws to an extreme. By doing that it caused the lives of several people and one of those being Emmett Till. Both Gandhi and King believed in turning the other cheek when someone did something to someone else for wrongful reasons.

In my opinion I believe that there was main places were both King and Gandhi missed the mark in their struggles for equal rights. Gandhi missed his mark when different religion people began to fight and argue over who got to rule the country. The different religious leaders left the choice up to Gandhi and said that whatever he chose would work. Gandhi made his decision and with that choice he brought about several conflicts that are still going on today between the different religions. The best thing Gandhi could have done was left the country leaderless and had it ran by the people themselves or separate the country and leave half for one group of people and half to the other. King on the other had if he did miss his mark the only thing that would have brought it about would have to be him being so bold and outstanding in what he did and the extremes he took things. This would cause him to miss his mark because it would greatly anger the white racist people. These people bombed and killed many blacks that were following King and the things he were asking them to do things he had in mind. It also caused several black people to start up organizations that were not so non-violent such as the black panthers. If it were not for King starting the movement these organizations may not have been formed. King's boldness and powerful words maybe just what got him killed.

Some legacies of struggle and movement can also be seen with Gandhi and King. King lead the civil rights movement, which helped the black people in the United States be able to go to school with whites, ride on the front of the bus, and helped them gain voting rights. The most known about struggle that took place was the bus boycott and Rosa Parks when she sat on the front of the bus and refused to move from her set. The Brown vs. Board of Education was also a well known struggle that allowed black students to be able to join white schools and get the same education as them. Gandhi started civil rights movements in both South Africa and India where they fought for their freedom from the English. One of his major struggles was the salt march where himself and several Indian people followed him down to the ocean to make their own salt instead of buying it from England. There was also the time when he told people to throw out their English made clothes and begin to spin their own homemade clothes. The Armastar massacre was also another event that took place that resulted in the death of hundreds of Indian people by British troops. As a result of that the famous Calcuta fast happened where Gandhi did not eat until the violence had come to an end. Both of these men's struggles are still remembered today and will forever be remembered.

The non-violence actions of the world are now fading away, which for people in the future is a bad thing because that means more violent times are still to come. Hopefully people will realize this until it is too late and turn to King and Gandhi and be able to learn from their positive and negative attributes of their teachings that they left behind in their legacies.