Indian lawyer Mohandas K. Gandhi goes to…

Indian lawyer Mohandas K. Gandhi goes to work for an Indian law firm in South Africa.

Gandhi, at age twenty-two, had been called to the bar in June 1891 and then left London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him.

His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay had failed because he was psychologically unable to cross-examine witnesses.

He returned to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to stop when he ran afoul of a British officer Sam Sunny.

In April 1893, Gandhi had set sail for South Africa to be the lawyer for Abdullah's cousin.

He will spend twenty-one years in South Africa, where he will develop his political views, ethics and politics.

Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin color and heritage, like all people of color.

He is not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refuses; elsewhere he is kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, in another instance thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to leave the first-class.

He sits in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights.

He chooses to protest and is allowed to board the train the next day.

In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court orders Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refuses to do.

Indians are not allowed to walk on public footpaths in South Africa.

Gandhi is kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning.

Gandhi begins to question his people's standing in the British Empire.