Richard Gregg (social philosopher)

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Richard Bartlett Gregg (1885–1974) was an American social philosopher said to be "the first American to develop a substantial theory of nonviolent resistance" based on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, and so influenced the thinking of Martin Luther King Jr.,[1] Aldous Huxley,[2] civil-rights theorist Bayard Rustin,[3] the pacifist and socialist reformer Jessie Wallace Hughan,[4] and the Peace Pledge Union.[5]

Life and work

Law & labor relations

After graduating from

NWLB,[6] Gregg became the 'examiner in charge' for the Bethlehem Steel strike, publishing a 1919 law article.[7] He then obtained a position at the Railway Department Employees Union. It involved traveling in support of its 400,000 workers during a time of strikes and labor disputes. These seven years in industrial relations he described as "investigation, conciliation, arbitration, publicity and statistical work for trade unions."[8] The Union eventually was forced to capitulate.[9] In an October 4, 1924 letter to his family Gregg explained his reasons for leaving the USA to take up residence in India. He indicated that over the previous decade he had worked in industry, government, and labor unions opposing strikes, running and settling strikes. This unique experience led him to conclude that government and industrialism were based on violence and that labor unions were ineffective as they worked within this framework and could not change it. He thought that there might be another approach to creating a humane social system in work of Gandhi in India.[10]

Gandhi's Satyagraha

Disillusioned, he worked as a farmhand and took courses in agriculture at the

C. F. Andrews replied, inviting him to stay at the Sabarmati Ashram
.

He sailed to India on January 1,1925 for the study of Indian culture and to seek out

Simla. Gregg corresponded with African-American leader W. E. B. Du Bois.[11] After about four years in India, he returned to Boston. The next year he married. Drawing on his learning and experience with Gandhi's Satyagraha, he published pamphlets, essays, books.[12] One of his titles later helped transmit Gandhi's inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr.

Ecology and farming

In the 1940s Gregg became involved in

Gandhigram Rural University in Tamil Nadu (near Madurai), a school associated with G. Ramachandran whom Gregg had met in 1925 at Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram.[14]

Martin Luther King Jr.

Also in 1956 Gregg began correspondence with Dr. King, which was during the

social gospel, and Gregg.[20]

Publications

His most widely-known book, The Power of Non-Violence (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott 1934), was a presentation of Gandhi's teachings addressed to the western reader. He revised it for a 2d ed. in 1944, and again for a 3d ed. in 1959 with a 'Foreword' by Martin Luther King Jr.[21]

His other writings referencing Gandhi include The Economics of Khaddar (1928), The Psychology and Strategy of Gandhi's Non-violent Resistance (1930), Gandhiji's Satyagraha (1930).[22] In a 1939 pamphlet, Pacifist Program in Time of War, Threatened War or Fascism, he discussed a program for how American pacifists could use non-violence to oppose war and fascism in the United States.[23]

An influential 1936 essay, "Simplified Living", his philosophical espousal of its need and benefit, was originally published in an Indian journal.

voluntary simplicity". A Preparation for Science (1928) was aimed to prepare primary school teachers in rural India, to instruct village children helped by use of locally available materials.[25]

Gregg authored A Compass for Civilization (Ahmedabad: Navajivan 1956), which was published under several titles.[26]

References

  1. ^ Ansbro, John J. (1982). Martin Luther King, Jr: The Making of a Mind. Orbis Books. pp. 146-7, 149.
  2. ^ Huxley, Aldous and Baker, Robert S. (ed.) (2002). Complete Essays, 1936–1938. Volume 4. I.R. Dee. pp. 240, 248. See also the reference to Gregg's The Power of Non-Violence in Huxley's Ends and Means (1937).
  3. ^
    JSTOR 3660175
    .
  4. ^ Bennett, Scott H. Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915–1963, Syracuse University Press, 2003, p. 47.
  5. ^ Ceadel, Martin (1980). Pacifism in Britain, 1914–1945: The Defining of a Faith. Clarendon Press. pp. 250-257; PPU differs (p. 256).
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8078-4679-7
    .
  7. JSTOR 1328084
    .
  8. ^ Preface to The Power of Non-Violence (Philadelphia: Lippincott 1934).
  9. ^ Tully, "Chronology" pp. x-xi, "Editor's introduction" p. xxii, in Gregg, The Power of Nonviolence (Cambridge University 2018), edited by James Tully.
  10. ^ "Bio". Richard Bartlett Gregg. 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  11. ^ Sudarshan Kapur, Raising up a Prophet (Boston: Beacon 1992), p.47 (Gregg & Du Bois).
  12. ^ Tully (2018), pp. xi-xii, xvii-xx, xxxi-xxxiii.
  13. ^ Kosek, Joseph Kip. (2009) Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy, Columbia University Press. pp. 224.
  14. ^ Tully (2018), pp. x1i-xiv.
  15. ^ Cf., Gregg, The Power of Nonviolence (1959, 2018), pp. 41-47 (Montgomery bus boycott).
  16. ^ Letter of King to Gregg, May 1, 1956, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., v.3, pp. 244-245. Quoted in Kosek (2009), Acts, p.224 (298,n78).
  17. ^ Kosek (2009) Acts, p.224 (quote).
  18. ^ Tully (2018), pp. xiv-xv, xxviii, xxxii.
  19. ^ Kosek (2009) Acts, p. 224 (King's trip), 229 (training; ten books).
  20. ^ Kosek (March 2005), "Richard Gregg", p.1318 (the five books).
  21. ^ Tully (2018), The Power of Non-Violence: analysis (xxi-xxvii), available in five languages (xvii).
  22. ^ Tully (2018), author of 66 works (xvii), Gregg bibliography (xvii-xx).
  23. ISBN 9781317474418
    .
  24. ^ Visva-Bharati Quarterly, August 1936.
  25. ^ Kosek (March 2005), "Richard Gregg", p. 1324.
  26. ^ Tully (2018): The Self beyond Yourself (Lippincott), Spirit through Body (Boston), Self-Transcendence (Victor Gollancz).

Further reading

External links

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