A Black Rose

*A retelling for children, based on **Portals to Freedom** by Howard Colby Ives.*

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In the spring of 1912 Howard Colby Ives often spent his Sunday afternoons at a friend's home in New York, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá spent many hours.

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One Sunday Howard was standing at a window when a big group of boys, twenty or thirty of them, came stamping up the front steps. They were poor boys, but they had scrubbed themselves clean for the visit. A few days before, some of them had followed 'Abdu'l-Bahá down the street, calling Him names. The lady of the house, Mrs. Kinney, had told them Who He was and invited them to come and see Him. So here they were.

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'Abdu'l-Bahá stood at the door of His room and greeted each boy as he came in. He shook one boy's hand and put His arm around another's shoulder, and He laughed so happily that He seemed almost like a boy with them.

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One of the last to come in was a Black boy of about thirteen. He was the only Black boy in the group, and he was afraid he might not be welcome.

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When 'Abdu'l-Bahá saw him, His face lit up with a smile. He raised His hand to welcome him, the way one would welcome a prince, and in a voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, He said that here was a black rose.

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The room went quiet. The boy's face shone with happiness, and the other boys looked at him with new eyes.

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Howard hoped the boys would remember it all their lives, and that whenever they met people of other races they would think of them as "different colored flowers in the Garden of God."

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["The Bowery Boys and the Black Rose"](/stories/pf-black-rose).*

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