Martin King III honors parents’ Gandhi studies

New Delhi — Martin Luther King III paid tribute to India’s pacifist icon Mohandas Gandhi on Sunday, commemorating the 50th anniversary of his father’s pilgrimage to the country to study nonviolence.

“This is a moment I will remember all my life,” King said after laying a wreath and showering red rose petals at the site where Gandhi was cremated in the Indian capital in 1948.

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Gurinder Osan/AP

After paying homage at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in New Delhi, India, on Sunday Martin Luther King III posed with a bust of the pacifist icon.

• More about Martin Luther King Jr.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, traveled to India in February 1959 to study Gandhi’s teachings and their use in India’s struggle for independence in the 1940s and returned home determined to end racism nonviolently in the United States.

“That work is not complete. … There are still, as my father used to say, injustices, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King said.

During his two-week visit, King — who was accompanied his wife, Arndrea Waters King, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young — will open a special Gandhi-King exhibition, speak on the nonviolent revolution, attend a “Living Dream Concert” tonight and visit Mumbai, the site of a November terrorist attacks that killed 164 people.