1893 — Gandhi Arrives in South Africa

On May 23, 1893, a 24-year-old lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi arrived in Durban, South Africa, on a one-year contract. He had come for ordinary legal work, far from home and with no public cause yet attached to his name. Within weeks, the country he had entered would teach him a lesson he never forgot.

He was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg for the color of his skin, a humiliation that sparked his fight against injustice. Over 21 years in South Africa he forged satyagraha, nonviolent resistance, before leading India's freedom struggle and inspiring liberation movements worldwide. A brief contract became the making of a world figure.