On This Day in History: June 7

Gandhi is thrown from a train

Subscribers can listen to the audio version of today’s post here.

An apotheosis of the history of the 20th century found its germination in a seemingly minor racist event from the previous century. It was a simple issue of throwing an Indian man from a train for daring to purchase and use a first-class ticket. That single act of segregation set Mohandas Gandhi on a path that would change the world.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 7, 1893--

Last year I wrote an excoriation of Mother Teresa and many were vexed. And yet, many others wrote, “Now do Gandhi.” He was definitely problematic as fuck. In his early life he said Black Africans “are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.” Later he became anti-racist, however, and was highly influential on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.  

There is also a creepy “testing of his celibacy” story with his teenage grandniece. Plus a bunch of other stuff. So, yeah, far from perfect. But also revered by many as father of the world’s second most populous nation. And it all began on June 7, 1893, when he was thrown from a train. 

Born in India in 1869, Gandhi was educated as a lawyer in England and in 1893 traveled to South Africa to practice. Immediately he was subject to overt racism from whites. He was forbidden to ride in a stagecoach with white travelers, told to sit on the floor near the driver. When he refused, he was beaten. Another time he was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a British person’s house. 

The first-class carriage of the train he was on was for whites only. He’d paid the first-class fare but was told to relocate to a segregated carriage for “lower class” passengers. He refused. And so, he was unceremoniously thrown from the train at Pietermaritzburg station. It was a cold winter night in the southern hemisphere. Gandhi sat and shivered, pondering if he should leave South Africa. But then, there was an epiphany; on that freezing platform a formerly meek man was infused with an iron will to change the world. He decided “It would be cowardice to run back to India,” and he chose to stay and spend the next two decades fighting for the rights of the sizeable Indian population living there. 

From that point on, Gandhi refused to submit to any bigotry because of his race, but he would also not resort to violence. Rather, he embodied peaceful opposition to injustice. He organized strikes and marches to counter South Africa’s racist policies against Indians regarding voting and working conditions. He was imprisoned several times but was also successful in effecting policy change. 

In 1914 he returned to India and took up the fight for his homeland’s independence from Britain, which was achieved in 1947. The following year, at the age of 78, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist. 

Support keeping this daily column free and get access to subscriber only content:

You can also . . .

Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.