Why did Martin Luther King Jr. call Gandhi his “guiding light”?

Mahatma Gandhi inspired people all over the world, including one of the United States’ most famous civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King Jr.  

Though the two men never got a chance to meet (King was 19 when Gandhi was assassinated), King learned about Gandhi through his writing and a trip to India in 1959. King drew heavily on Gandhian principle of nonviolence in his own civil rights activism, writing that “while the Montgomery boycott was going on, India’s Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”

“Nonviolence” is a more than simply agreeing that you won’t physically attack your enemy. Gandhi referred to his form of nonviolence as satyagraha, meaning “truth-force” or “love-force.” Practicing satyagraha means a person should seek truth and love while refusing, through nonviolent resistance, to participate in something she believes is wrong. This principle guided Gandhi’s activism against the British Empire, helping India win independence in 1947.

war never

because it !