race-unity

In *The Advent of Divine Justice* (1939), Shoghi Effendi laid before the American Bahá'ís the work that would prove central to their century: the task of overcoming racial prejudice. White believers were called to abandon their inherited sense of superiority; minority members were to be unhesitatingly given priority — not for sentiment, but for the health of the Faith.

As part of the American South, Washington, D.C. was also a city in which racial segregation was a fact of life, and it was on the issue of racial equality that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was most uncompromising during his visit to America. On one…

At that time, Washington was the most racially and socially mixed Bahá’í community in America, but it had deep racial unity problems. The upper classes, including people like Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, still upheld the long-standing social…

What is real unity? When we observe the human world we find various collective expressions of unity therein. For instance, man is distinguished from the animal by his degree or kingdom. This comprehensive distinction includes all the…

‘Abdu’l-Bahá spent His early years in an environment of privilege, wealth, and love. ** ‘Abdu’l-Bahá…

Bahá'í Chronicles records the establishment of the South African Bahá'í community in the early 1950s — when Shoghi Effendi's Ten Year Crusade brought pioneers to the apartheid-era cities, and the first declarations were made by a handful of Black, white, and Indian South Africans who had found in the Faith the answer to the racial question their country had not yet faced.

Gregory was instrumental in arranging for two major speaking engagements for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Washington DC to an audience of more than a thousand in Rankin Chapel at Howard University, and that evening to a large gathering of the Bethel…

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a…

In *A Heavenly Vista* Louis G. Gregory describes the afternoon in April 1911 when, having travelled from Egypt, he was rowed across the bay to 'Akká for the first time — and the small wooden landing-stair at the foot of the prison walls that received the first African American Bahá'í pilgrim.

On April 10, 1911, in Alexandria, Egypt, Louis G. Gregory — the African American lawyer from Washington who would later be named a Hand of the Cause — entered 'Abdu'l-Bahá's reception room for the first time. His pilgrimage notes preserve the kiss on the head, the question about his health, and the silence into which a long journey suddenly settled.

Juliet Thompson wrote: “Gently yet unmistakably, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had assaulted the customs of a city that had been scandalized only a decade earlier by President Roosevelt’s dinner invitation to Booker T. Washington. Moreover as a friend who…

On April 23, 1912, after speaking at Howard University in the morning, 'Abdu'l-Bahá was the principal guest at a diplomatic luncheon at the home of Persian chargé d'affaires Ali-Kuli Khan. One hour before the hour, the Master sent for Louis Gregory — the African-American Bahá'í who had not been invited — and seated him in the place of honor.

On March 25, 1911, at the behest of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Louis Gregory sailed from New York through Europe to Egypt and Palestine to go on pilgrimage. In Palestine, Gregory met with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi and visited the Shrine of…

Pauline and Joseph Hannen were the prime movers of racial integration in Washington in the early years of the Faith there. Initially, Pauline feared black people, but her study of Bahá’u’lláh's writings forced her to change her attitude.…

In *Portals to Freedom* Howard Colby Ives recalls a moment in New York in 1912 when 'Abdu'l-Bahá publicly greeted a Black boy in a crowd with the loud, unmistakable proclamation that he was *a black rose* — a phrase that, in the racially stratified America of the day, was a small revolution.

On the afternoon of April 22, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the students and faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C. — the historically Black institution at the heart of African American higher education. His subject was the station of the human being: created in the image of God, possessed of a divine spark beyond every material limitation.

On April 30, 1912, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the Fourth Annual Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at Handel Hall in Chicago. He told the gathering that the colour of skin is accidental in nature; the spirit and intelligence of man is essential, and there alone are the divine virtues to be measured.

On October 7, 1912, at the Japanese Independent Church in Oakland, California, 'Abdu'l-Bahá addressed the Japanese Young Men's Christian Association on the destructiveness of prejudice — drawing on what He had personally witnessed during His exile in Rumelia.

In June 1911 the Star of the West reported, in its News of the Cause in London column, the visit of Louis G. Gregory — the African American lawyer who had recently completed his pilgrimage to 'Akká. The English friends recorded their impression in a single phrase: *a great soul, aflame with God's Word.*

In 1918 the Star of the West printed Louis Gregory's report on his Southern teaching tour — a journey through the segregated cities of Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and Nashville at a time when Black and white believers in the South were quietly meeting together in defiance of the laws of those states.