Inspiring the Non-Violent Actions of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Moral Persuasion of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Evanka Annyapu Junior Division Individual Website

Process Paper

When I was first introduced to the NHD theme, Rights & Responsibilities, my mind immediately thought of an amazing person in history; Mahatma Gandhi. Even though I wanted to fully concentrate on Gandhi, I wanted to show how he influenced other world leaders. I realized that I needed to narrow down my topic. I started looking into the civil rights movement during the racial segregation issues that America was having. I brought it down from how Gandhi inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., to how Gandhis focus on rights and responsibilities morally persuaded Martin Luther King, Jr.s actions of nonviolence. After researching videos, interviews, reliable websites, books, and archives, I found a lot of information, but I also wanted to tie in the fact that they both came from similar religious backgrounds where they believed in the idea of nonviolence. I first looked into the Historical Society Archive Library in Wisconsin for more information about the history of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and I met with very little success. I took my chances of getting interviews from Kashmira Sheth, an author and some primary sources in my family. I had some ups and downs of finding people for an interview. I ended up finding interesting information online, like letters from Albert Einstein to Gandhi and a lost-now-found speech recording Martin Luther King, Jr. made about Gandhi. I decided to use the website for my project because I liked the idea of sharing all my information using technology. Once I got on to Weebly, I started off by looking at examples. I looked into making my website as informative and on-topic as possible so, I organized all the information I gathered and started making an outline of what I wanted to get the reader to understand. I pulled out topics from my thesis and made them into my tabs and subtabs. I put myself in the readers shoes and tried to make the website easier to use by adding buttons to go to other links and pages, making my website flow easier. I used images, videos, and audio clips to make it catchier. I added quotes from Gandhi and Reverend King, Jr., which were bolded in blue to make them stand out from the personal statements I made. Every step I took towards researching more about these people, it inspired me and pushed me to know more about them. I started to know that they both were once ordinary people living in an ordinary period of time until they started taking a look at the way they were living. Gandhi and Reverend King, Jr., were both brave enough to take a step forward even if it meant facing the risks of getting hurt by the opposed. They felt it was their responsibility to fight for equal rights for all people.