Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) is generally identified for his function within the U.S. Civil Rights Motion; a motion for which he lived, fought, and died. Nonetheless, the influence of MLK’s message and mission prolonged – and continues to increase – far past these American shores.
“[Dr. King] utilized an moral framework of compassion and nonviolence to his theories and motion within the worldwide neighborhood,” stated Marcus King, director of George Washington College’s Elliott College’s worldwide affairs grasp’s program.
EXPOSURE TO GLOBAL ISSUES
King was the moderator of a 2019 discussion board on MLK the place Dr. Robert M. Franklin, a former president of Morehouse, former head of Emory College’s Candler College of Theology, and professor of theology and social justice at each establishments, spoke.
Franklin shared that MLK was uncovered to worldwide happenings partially by “an in depth roster of audio system who visited Morehouse’s chapel, together with Eleanor Roosevelt and Howard College’s first African American president Mordecai Wyatt Johnson,” wrote Tatyana Hopkins for GW Immediately
Furthermore, the mentorship of Dr. Benjamin Mays and Dr. Howard Thurman, influenced a younger MLK to see himself as a citizen of the world.
Many years earlier than MLK encountered Mahatma Gandhi, Thurman skilled his personal life-changing assembly with the worldwide determine, additional strengthening his phrases to MLK concerning the significance of seeing points from a world perspective.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
MLK’s first style of worldwide journey came about in 1957, simply months after the Dec. 1956 finish of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
In response to Franklin, MLK’s go to to Ghana, Liberia and Senegal occurred amid an rising variety of nations in Africa and Asia liberating themselves from the shackles of colonization and changing into newly freed nations.
For MLK, this fostered an mental, religious and ethical kinship between international actions of oppressed individuals and nations combating for freedom and the U.S. Civil Rights Motion.
“[Dr. King] acknowledged the robust parallel between resistance to European colonialism in Africa and the wrestle towards racism in the US,” Dr. Franklin stated.
MLK’s Africa connection alone is far more intensive than he’s normally given credit score for. However he didn’t finish his international tour within the motherland.
Moreover, MLK visited Europe and South America earlier than happening a month-long journey to India in 1959.
“Gandhi was lengthy gone, as he had been assassinated in 1948, however many on the planet have been starting to treat younger King as the brand new and rising image of worldwide nonviolence, persistence and social change,” added Franklin.
Few know of MLK’s worldwide travels and his affect and inspiration that was and is felt nicely past his dwelling nation.
GLOBAL IMPACT
Streets and boulevards named after King might be discovered all around the world, from Niger to Australia, Brazil to Germany. There’s a park named for him in Paris, a church in Debrecen, Hungary, a faculty in Yaounde, Cameroon, and even a bridge in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
This international attain is due partially to the media’s protection of the work MLK did within the U.S. However its additionally as a result of MLK consciously related the U.S. wrestle for home equality for Black individuals with worldwide issues. MLK is legend in South Africa, as he was an outspoken critic of South Africa’s apartheid regime. MLK was additionally a harsh critic of European colonialism in Africa, South America and Asia. MLK additionally supported land reforms for these dwelling in poverty in Latin America, and noticed poverty as a global human rights challenge.
It may be argued that MLK and the U.S. Civil Rights Motion impressed the 1965 adoption of the Worldwide Conference on the Elimination of All Types of Racial Discrimination, the primary worldwide human rights treaty because the 1948 Conference on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
MLK’s worldwide attain prolonged by way of the various international leaders he impressed, with South Africa’s Nelson Mandela being simply considered one of them. However simply as essential, but much more not often mentioned is the influence Africa had on MLK.
