While attending the Baptist World Congress in Durban, South Africa, this summer, some friends and I took advantage of our free afternoon and enlisted a guide for a tour of some local history. Two surprises greeted me. First, Mahatma Gandhi began his civil disobedience and non-violent protest work in South Africa, not India. In fact, he labored in Durban for over 20 years before returning to his native land.
My second Gandhi surprise was waiting for me back in Jefferson City, Mo., at our public library. Curious to know more about the great Indian leader, I checked out a few biographies and discovered that Gandhi’s first biographer and close friend was a British Baptist pastor named Joseph J. Doke, who arrived in Durban from the pastorate of Central Baptist Church in Johannesburg. The two men met on New Year’s Day 1908. Doke showed up at Gandhi’s law office for the express purpose of meeting the passionate, altruistic organizer. The minister later reported that he had expected to meet a tall, stately man, but found a "small, lithe, spare" one.
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