Mohanadas “Mahatma” Gandhi did not set out to become a civil rights leader. Quite the opposite, he trained as a lawyer and traveled to South Africa intending to make his living in the employ of the upper classes. He arrived under a one-year contract to serve as legal counsel to the merchant Dada Abdulla, and it was on a journey for Abdulla that Gandhi got his first taste of discrimination.

On this day, June 7, in 1893, while on a train traveling through Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, Gandhi was confronted and told that first-class compartment he was traveling in was reserved for whites only. Gandhi refused to move, showing he purchased a first-class ticket, and was unceremoniously thrown off the train, with his luggage thrown out behind him.

Gandhi recalled the incident in his memoirs: it was winter and his coat was in the luggage, which Gandhi dared not ask for, lest he be insulted again. “I was afraid for my very life. … There was a white man in the room. I was afraid of him.” Gandhi realized his suffering was nothing compared to what the others who faced discrimination went through. “What was my duty? I asked myself. Should I go back to India, or should I go forward with God as my helper, and face whatever was in store for me? I decided to stay and suffer. My active non-violence began from that date.”