In the late 1890s, a quiet man named Mahatma Gandhi introduced passive resistance, a new way of protesting. Gandhi, originally from India, was a well-educated man living in South Africa. He spoke out against the poor treatment that natives received in South Africa and India. He said that the way to change this treatment was not by fighting but by quietly and calmly resisting the treatment. For instance, Gandhi organized marches to protest unfair laws; when police attacked the protesters, they did not fight back.

In 1914, Gandhi returned to India and applied the methods he had learned in South Africa to gain home rule for India. Home rule gave India the right to govern itself instead of being governed as a British colony. Gandhi worked for decades to free his country from Great Britain. Perhaps his most famous protest was the trek of thousands across the country to the Arabian Sea to take salt from the sea for themselves and refuse to pay the tax on salt the British had imposed. Gandhi fasted and meditated to make his point. Although he was imprisoned many, many times, the British government knew that Mahatma, which means “great soul,” was respected by so many that he could not be harmed. Gandhi fought against the caste system in India. The caste system separated people based on the class into which they were born.

Not until 1947 did the British grant India its independence. But soon after, a civil war erupted between two religious groups who wanted control of the country, the Hindus and the Muslims. Gandhi spoke against the violence. In January 1948, Gandhi was shot and killed by one of his own countrymen who disagreed with his desire for peace.

Gandhi’s work influenced countless reformers in many countries including Martin Luther King, Jr., in the United States. His speeches remain famous, and many still practice his methods for changing an unjust system.