Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>In this chapter, examples are provided from Martin Luther King Jr.’s political life in which his actions can be understood as based on a politics of radical empathy, including in Atlanta and Montgomery. The concept of nonviolence is seen as needing radical empathy, and being unsuccessful without it, because it requires understanding and compassion for one’s opponents. Long-term movement toward peace and justice can be achieved only when all violent forms of action are rejected in principle. King and Gandhi offered religious and spiritual reasons for accepting nonviolence as a basic principle of life. Along with the spiritual approach given by King and Gandhi, a psychological rationale is the best additional secular explanation for the need to be nonviolent in principle.</jats:p>