'Abdu'l-Bahá at Howard University

*A retelling based on 'Abdu'l-Bahá's talk at Howard University as recorded in **The Promulgation of Universal Peace**, with details of the occasion from **Mahmúd's Diary**. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those records.*

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'Abdu'l-Bahá spent the last days of April 1912 in Washington, D.C. On 23 April He went to Howard University, which Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání describes in his diary as "an educational institution for blacks." The notes to the diary record that well over a thousand students, teachers and guests filled Rankin Chapel.

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Maḥmúd writes that the hosts, "mostly black with a few whites," had arranged for a band to play as 'Abdu'l-Bahá arrived, and the audience applauded. The president of the university introduced Him as "the Prophet of Peace and the harbinger of unity and salvation."

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'Abdu'l-Bahá began: "Today I am most happy, for I see here a gathering of the servants of God. I see white and black sitting together. There are no whites and blacks before God. All colors are one, and that is the color of servitude to God. Scent and color are not important. The heart is important. If the heart is pure, white or black or any color makes no difference. God does not look at colors; He looks at the hearts."

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He turned to the natural world. In the plant kingdom, He said, the colors of flowers are no cause of discord. "Rather, colors are the cause of the adornment of the garden because a single color has no appeal; but when you observe many-colored flowers, there is charm and display.

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The world of humanity, too, is like a garden, and humankind are like the many-colored flowers." Doves, He went on, are of many colors, yet white doves fly with black ones; they look at the species and not at the color. He asked why human beings, who have reason, should make color a cause of conflict, when white and black alike are "the descendants of the same Adam" and "belong to one household."

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"Therefore, today I am very happy that white and black have gathered together in this meeting," He said. "I hope this coming together and harmony reaches such a degree that no distinctions shall remain between them, and they shall be together in the utmost harmony and love."

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Maḥmúd records that the audience applauded again and again during the talk. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá left the hall, people stood in two lines on either side of His path, bowing and waving their hats and handkerchiefs in farewell. Later that day He spoke again, at the Bethel Literary Society of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

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*This is a retelling. For the full talk, see **The Promulgation of Universal Peace** by 'Abdu'l-Bahá.*

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