Segregation in America Growing up at a golden moment Desegregation of school districts was remarkably successfully – especially in the South.
Racial Unity A mother’s eyes on the prize My first black teacher was in second-grade – and both my grandmothers tried to get me transferred out of that class. My mother told them to go to hell.
Bahai Community A brilliant stroke of parenting The Baha’is in my town collaborated on Martin Luther King Day, they put on a Black History Month program. They were impressive.
Bahai Religion ‘Praise the Lord, here you are’ It felt like Pentecost, when the disciples went out and they began to preach the word of Jesus after his crucifixion.
Civil Rights Movement An act of God Black people in the South never forgot the promise of Reconstruction. The Baha’i Faith arrived in the US just as it was being stamped out.
Bahai Religion History The sad story of Alonzo Twine South Carolina’s hospital for the insane was the kind of place where, if you weren’t insane already, it would do you in.
Racism in America The hard face of Jim Crow Segregation removed African-Americans from political power and kept them at the bottom of society.
Bahai Community Abdu’l-Baha and Louis Gregory Louis Gregory, an African-American lawyer, tried to slip out the back door as a gathering of white guests arrived to see Abdu’l-Baha.
Bahai Community A handful, a roomful and then a great gathering In the 1920s and later, had black Southerners been given the chance they would have responded to the Baha’i Faith in large numbers.
Bahai Community Leaving the comfort zone The size of the American Baha'i community grew faster than anybody could predict.
Bahai Community Living through the century of light The 1960s and 1970s were the richest period that the Baha'i world community has ever experienced.
Bahai Community The most distinctive aspect of Persian culture Iranians fleeing trauma in their own country came to the US unprepared for the nuances of the racial situation.