The biopic Gandhi, directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, won eight Oscars, including Best Actor for Ben Kingsley.
Walk up to the monument to Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi in the southwest part of Union Square Park. Reading the Q code with your phone, an actor will speak of Gandhi’s contribution to freedom. He is one of the quartet of freedom fighters memorialized in the park. George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette are there for their roles in founding the United States. And Abraham Lincoln is there for freeing the slaves and keeping the nation whole. Washington died peacefully; Lafayette was worn down by imprisonment and fights in France. Gandhi and Lincoln were assassinated while trying to bring peace and freedom to their nations.
Each of our Freedom Quartet of Union Square contributed to the deep religious culture of New York City that can help carry us through these troubled times.
Gandhi inspired Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. to work for peace among the nations and the elimination of the vestiges of slavery in the United States. In appreciation on October 2, 1986, Rustin gave the keynote speech at the erection of Gandhi’s statue sculpted by Kantilal B. Patel.
Washington presided over the constitutional convention that instituted freedom of religious belief, conscience, assembly and speech. Lafayette was an author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen which declared, “no one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.” Lincoln’s Second Inaugural presidential address is one of the greatest sermons ever preached, part of which used to be inscribed on the fence surrounding his monument: “with malice toward none; charity toward all.”
A ceremony takes place at the statue every year on Gandhi’s birthday of October 2nd .
Gandhi was a sort of messiah for the NYC Unitarian pastor Reverend John Haynes Holmes Holmes. He publicized his work from his pulpit and describes his meetings and interactions with the Mahatma in his book My Gandhi. The center of Haynes’s admiration rested upon Gandhi’s pacificism.
He left the Unitarian Church over the decision to support the United States participation in World War I (he later rejoined). He renamed his congregation the Community Church of New York. On May 25, 1919, Holmes was one of the speakers at a rally held in Madison Square Gardens, which demanded the end of US government support for the White forces against the Red forces (Communists) in Russia.
Holmes engaged in interfaith efforts, working closely with Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise of New York. The book Rabbi and Minister details this friendship and their working relationship on social, religious, and political causes. Holmes was also among the leading American Christian supporters of Zionism in the 1930s, but he did not support the establishment of Israel as a state.
Although primarily a minister, Holmes helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in 1909, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920.
