Martin Luther King III visits India to retrace father's journey

Martin Luther King III is on a visit to India to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his parents' visit to India in 1959.

50 years ago, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, traveled to India after being inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and his nonviolent means through which India gained its Independence from the colonial rulers.

The trip to India affected King Jr in a profound way, inspiring him to follow the non-violent resistance and civil disobedience to America's struggle for civil rights.

"Gandhi represents so much to me personally," King told The Associated Press on Thursday. "It's an incredible honor to be able to retrace those steps and meet with some of the people who were engaged with my parents."

King said he expects the trip will be an inspirational one.

"It's like we're recommitting ourselves to fulfill the unfinished work of my parents and Gandhi," he said. "Fifty years after my dad went, I'm able to go to India as an ambassador of my father's legacy."

Eminent Americans John Lewis and Spencer Bachus is also part of the delegation that is on a 13-day tour. Beginning from New Delhi, they would travel around India to those sites associated with Gandhi's work.

US Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who's accompanying King, said: "Gandhi and King... have brought India and America together. Gandhi's non- violent ideas travelled to the civil rights movement in America, which in turn, influenced the South African movement against apartheid. Why not use these ideas to resolve issues in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?"

In 1969, King Jr recalled his privilege of spending time at the Sabarmati Ashram, and meeting the then president, Rajendra Prasad, and Jawaharlal Nehru.

"To other countries I go as a tourist, but to India I come as a pilgrim," he had said on his arrival.

"The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from Bentham and Mill, Marx and Lenin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Nietzshe, I found in the non- violent resistance philosophy of Gandhi," King Jr said.

The American Baptist minister and prominent civil rights activist, in 1964, became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination.