3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

practicability of his position: '~4 He had written a paper while at Crour which challenged
Muste's notions of pacifism .
Rustin, who would become King's right-hand man, was adamant . iHe was most
bothered by King's apparent lack of philosophical commitment . Rustin's first advice to King
was to get rid of the guns around his house . He also encouraged him to think of the situation
in Montgomery less as a boycott and more as a protest movement, to think of the method less
as passive resistance and more as nonviolence . In Rustin's mind, Montgomery held the
promise of becoming an international showcase for the power of nonviolence. King was
thinking in less grandiose terms ; however, to both men, the boycott meant more than a choice
of .seats on a city bus. It symbolized a direct challenge to racial injustice in the South .
Despite his theological acumen, King knew little about the practical implementation
of nonviolence . "Like most people, I had heard of Gandhi," he reminisced, "but I had never
studied him seriously ."~ s Rev . Glenn Smiley-a white Southerner, Methodist preacher, and
FOR worker-remembered his first mating with King on February 27, 1956. Arriving with
an armload of books on the subject, Smiley asked King about his familiarity with nonviolent
doctrine. "I said to Dr . King," he later recalled, "`I'm assuming that you're very familiar
[with] and have been greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi .' And he was very thoughtful,
and he said, `As a matter of fact, no . I know who the man is . I have read some statements by
him, and so on, and I will have to truthfully say'--and this is almost a direct quote--`I will
~°King, quoted in Staughton Lynd, ed., Nonviolence in America : A Documencarv
Hiss (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1966), 385 .
~SKing, Stride Toward Freedom , 96 .