Martin Luther King in Madras

Martin Luther King, 1959 at Presidency College.
“To other countries I may go as a tourist, but to India I come as a pilgrim.” This is what Martin Luther King Jr had to say when he came to India on the invitation of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Martin Luther king’s fight for equal rights of the African-American people in U.S.A was deeply inspired for Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha Movement. Martin Luther King Jr., his wife Coretta Scot King and personal biographer Lawrence Reddick criss-crossed the country as they stopped in Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Madurai and several other cities. He stopped in Madras on February 18 for a brief 2- day trip and was welcomed by officials of the Madras State government.
Despite being separated by an ocean of differences, He immediately struck a chord with the people. His public meetings at Srinivasa Shastri Hall in Mylapore and Presidency College attracted overwhelming crowds. In his speech he was grateful to Mahatma Gandhi for paving the way for a non-violent struggle which changed the course of history in U.S.A. In some miniscule way India also rejoiced when U.S.A got its first African-American president, Barack Obama. Like Martin Luther king’s famous words “I have a dream”. He also saw to it that it came true.

Source:The Hindu | Nithya Menon.

Queen Elizabeth in Madras

Madras’s tryst with royalty dates back to 1961 when the  Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh’s visited Madras on February 19. It was the first visit by the reigning british monarch to the south.
People lined the streets from the airport at Meenambakkam to the centre of town in hundreds and thousands as the newspapers of that time reported. A general holiday was declared in both Madras and Bangalore
They were received at the Rajaji Hall in the erstwhile Government Estate by a high power delegation of statesmen led by C Subramaniam, the finance minister, Dr P V Cherian, chairman of the Madras Legislative Council, Dr U Krishna Rao, speaker of the legislative assembly, and R Venkataraman, minister of industries at that time along with the then Chief minister K.Kamaraj
Source:Timesofindia