Rhode Island 8th Grade Gandhi Essay Contest

Gandhi Essay Contest Winners

2011-2012

Congratulations, Grace Miner!

1st Place Gandhi Essay Contest Winner

Grace Miner, 8th Grade Student at Archie R. Cole Middle School, of East Greenwich, RI, reading her winning essay at the annual award ceremony at URI.

Click Here to view more photos of the 2011-12 Awards and Student Finalists

Essay Prompt:

Gandhi brought his wife and children from India to South Africa in 1898 on a ship called the Courland. A crowd of white South Africans protested the ship’s arrival and threatened violence to the dark-skinned immigrant passengers. When Gandhi disembarked, he was surrounded and violently attacked by the angry mob threatening to lynch him. He narrowly escaped and when asked to identify his attackers, so that they could be arrested and punished, Gandhi refused. Throughout his life Gandhi chose love and truth over violence, never retaliating with violence against his attackers. Gandhi was once reported to have said, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

Write a personal essay in which you explain what you think Gandhi meant by the quote, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Also, discuss how you think this saying has meaning for our world today. Describe examples of what you have done or what you could do to make the world a better place, following Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. 

Sponsored by: URI Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies and the URI Honors Program