Gandhi’s Satyagraha and its Legacy in the Americas and Africa

Abstract

The article addresses the impact of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas in the US, Latin America and Africa, especially on important political figures. The influence of Gandhi’s ideas in Latin America started very early in the twentieth century. By 1930 and perhaps even earlier, important Latin American intellectuals began to refer to Gandhi, one of whom was José Carlos Mariátegui. Gandhi’s non-violent struggle also had a great impact in America, particularly in the 1950s and the 1960s, the years of peak resistance against the Jim Crow laws––a collection of state and local statutes that legalised racial segregation which had existed for about 100 years from the post-Civil War era until 1965. In the twenty-first century, the Satyagraha philosophy motivated those who were involved in the struggle for human rights, the defenders of indigenous peoples and those fighting against globalisation. We can include among them the Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize awardee Adolfo Pérez Esquivel whose work in the defence of human rights and non-violent resistance forcefully showed the influence of Gandhi and his powerful legacy.