Hands down I would have to say Mohandas Gandhi. You could say MLK but did MLK not look up to Gandhi and did MLK not follow the path of Gandhi?

Gandhi followed the right path in the Indian independence movement, that path was non-violence. Gandhi was a great political leader. He used non violence to help aid the corrupted minds of the British with there racist thoughts toward Indians.

Gandhi lead many different marches, rallies, and told many speeches to his followers. One of the more important marches would be the Salt March. Gandhi and many of his followers marched all the way from Ahmedabad to Dandi which was around 250 miles just to make his own salt in protest to the new salt taxes.

Gandhi was the main leader in the Quit India movement caused great entropy in India. There was a plethora of arrests going into the hundreds of thousands. Gandhi stayed strong behind non violence and was thrown into jail for 2 years. After Gandhi was released ( due to health issues ), and after Quit India had run its course, he called off the struggle as the British had made it clear that a transfer of power was approaching finalization.

Gandhi was a great man who burned his life into the ground for the people of India and he rose as a phoenix out of the ashes to a free India. W/O Gandhi's help India would not have been freed from Britain's control which is why I believe Gandhi was and in spirit still is the greatest civil rights leader.

Thurgood Marshall was one of the best civil rights lawyers of the 1900s. He was the chief counsel of the NAACP he won 29 of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 which was a huge case in the rights for those black children to attend that school. He served as Solicitor General under Lyndon Johnson. served as a Justice of the Supreme Court from 1960s to the 1990s, making a record of support for the rights of criminal suspects. I think to me that Marshall was one of the greatest of all time. Definately the best civil rights lawyer.

Well, who knows, but using the example that Ghandi inspired MLK,

I think the furthest you can trace a call to civil disobediance in the name of a greater good is in Plato's Republic.

Rome based their democracy on his teachings,

and our forefathers were heavily influenced by philosophy and many aspects of rome.

And the ideas of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were embraced by both MLK and Ghandi,

I think I have to give this one to Plato, or Socrates.

William Wilberforce.

After his conversion to Christianity and motivated by his new faith, he fought for the abolition of the slave trade as a Member of Parliament in the British Empire starting in 1787 and continued until the Slavery Abolition Act was signed into law in 1833, three days before he died.

MLK he put into effect the Civil Rights movement and without him maybe the USA would have turned out different. I am well aware of Gandhi's influence on MLK but I am sure Gandhi was influenced by another also so really it is not who you take your advice from its what you do with the advice.

To me it would be John Locke with MLK second.

John Locke believed in a free society where the people were the rulers, not a tyrant. He believed that the people should hold social contracts keeping their best interest at hand.

He fought for the civil liberties of all people.

gandhi was the greatest civil rights advocate of our time,all people interested in civil rights would do well to follow his wisdom!

I would rather go with M.L.K not only because I am an African American myself, but because he helped improve for everyone, for equality, not just the one people. Though he did not meditate on things as Gandhi did, he had a rational thought process and a vision.

I think they're all great- I think the questions is a bit off- like there's some kind of contest or something. Should we take the final four candidates and have them slug it out? I think a better way of thinking about the subject would be to ask "who are some of you favorite civil rights leaders, and why?". A small distinction, perhaps.

I would say Malcom X. He did great things, has the coolest name ever, and is rather funny

I think we confusing the greatest leader with the most charismatic. MLK was the most Charismatic along with Malcolm x but Gandhi was probably the more influential of the 3. Malcolm X was the more impressive when you consider that he was a criminal and had to turn his life around. Lets not forget that towards the end of his career his views were different from the views that made him famous. Finally the greatest civil rights leader was Jesus Christ, think about it.