Thread by @Paperclip_In

On the evening of 4th April, 1968, #MartinLutherKing was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. On his death anniversary, we travel back in time to take a look at some moments & glimpses of his visit to India in 1959 (1/n)

In his own words, "For a long time I had wanted to take a trip to India....While the Montgomery boycott was going on, India’s Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of non-violent social change. We spoke of him often...(2/n)

...So as soon as our victory over bus segregation was won, some of my friends said: “Why don’t you go to India and see for yourself what the Mahatma, whom you so admire, has wrought.” (3/n)

At a press conference held at Delhi's Janpath Hotel on 10th Feb, 1959, hours after arriving in India, King had famously said, "To other countries I may go as a tourist, but to India I come as a pilgrim...(4/n)

...This is because India means to me Mahatma Gandhi, a truly great personality of the ages. India also means to me Pandit Nehru and his wise statesmanship and intellectuality that are recognized the world over." (5/n)

During his stay at Delhi, King conversed extensively with PM Jawaharlal Nehru and president S. Radhakrishan. According to his wife Coretta Scott King, he compared it to meeting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison in a single day (6/n)

King and his wife Coretta paying their respect to Gandhi at Rajghat on 11th Feb, 1959 (7/n)

King delivering an address at Indian Council of World Affairs (8/n)

Six years after the trip, addressing a church sermon, King recalled a specific instance from his India visit that left an indelible impression on him. It happened while he was visiting a school for children from lower castes in Trivandrum (9/n)

The principal introduced King to the children as a "fellow untouchable from the United States of America." By his own admission, for a moment King felt angry at this. But then a wave of realization dawned on him (10/n)

“And I said to myself, ‘Yes, I am an untouchable, and every Negro in the United States of America is an untouchable’. And this is the evilness of segregation: it stigmatizes the segregated as an untouchable in a caste system..” King had said (11/n)

His India trip had a deep impact on Martin Luther King. “I left India more convinced than ever before that non-violent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom..” he wrote later (12/n)

Martin Luther King worked tirelessly towards his goal of equality and justice till his life was tragically cut short by a bullet #OTD 54 years ago. But his legacy lives on (13/n)

Sources: kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/do…
kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/i…
scroll.in/magazine/10001…
thebetterindia.com/273564/martin-…
Pictures: US Embassy, New Delhi / Associated Press (AP) / The Washington Post / @tunkuv