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| Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union. |
Leaders of the
civil rights movementin the United States, including
Martin Luther King and
James Lawson, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the
development of their
own theories about non-violence.
Anti-apartheidactivist and former President of
South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi.
Others include Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,Steve Biko, Aung San Suu Kyi
,and
Benigno Aquino, Jr. (the Philippine opposition leader during the dictatorship of
Ferdinand Marcos and father of current Philippine president Benigno Aquino III).
n his early years, the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was a follower of the non-violent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. Bhana and Vahed commented on these events as "Gandhi inspired succeeding generations of South African activists seeking to end White rule. This legacy connects him to Nelson Mandela...in a sense Mandela completed what Gandhi started.""Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics." – Martin Luther King Jr, 1955
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| Mahatma Gandhi District in Houston, Texas |
Gandhi's life and teachings inspired many who specifically referred to
Gandhi as their mentor or who dedicated their
lives to spreading Gandhi's ideas.
In Europe, Romain Rolland was the first to discuss Gandhi in
his 1924 book Mahatma Gandhi, and Brazilian anarchist and
feminist Maria Lacerda de Moura wrote about Gandhi in her
work on pacifism. In 1931, notable European physicist Albert Einstein
exchanged written letters with Gandhi, and called him "a role model for
the generations to come" in a later writing about him.
Obama at the Wakefield High School speech in Sept 2009, said that his biggest inspiration came from Mahatma Gandhi. His reply was in response to the question 'Who was the one person, dead or live, that you would choose to dine with?'. He continued that "He's somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. King with his message of nonviolence. He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics."
The Mahatma Gandhi District in Houston, Texas, United States, an ethnic Indian enclave, is named after Gandhi. The district officially received its named on 16 January 2010 when the City of Houston held a naming ceremony
