Bahai Community Sue St. Clair Sue St. Clair, born in 1947 in South Bend, Indiana, was raised under difficult conditions before moving to Chicago and becoming a Baha'i as an adult. She later trained as a nurse, lived in Liberia, and had four sons.
Segregation in America One life with many names Growing up was not easy. There wasn’t anyone to nurture or love you or to make you feel special.
Racism in America The only black family in the neighborhood We were the outsiders. My mother was very concerned about how we were perceived.
Bahai Religion Praying for a meaningful life I believed that if anybody could love me it would probably be Jesus Christ.
Bahai Community Visiting the Baha’i House of Worship The first thing I saw was a white man hugging a black woman. And something was let loose inside me.
Bahai Community South and North Even though I avoided lunch with some white Baha’is, my family was my Baha'i community.
Racism in America Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Biafra, Vietnam, MLK and Kennedy again The difficulty for me was believing someone could hate someone else because of the color of their skin.
Racial Discrimination Like climbing Mount Everest, only harder I had to always fight against that feeling of I'm not good enough.
Racism in America Overqualified for Apartheid In Liberia my sons saw black men who were black men without the weight of of racism pulling them down.
Racial Identity Relying on Baha’u’llah I thought I would probably marry an African when I lived in Liberia. So I married a white man.
Racial Unity Culture shock – in America My mother-in-law held up her arms and said 'my daughter' and I just broke down in tears.
Racism in America Dark forces in America When someone does a terrible thing like harming black people, that's a spiritual sickness.
Racism in America The kind of man that can live in this world I thought, oh my God, I’m going to have a black child. There was so much fear that filled my heart.
Racial Unity Teaching a mixed-race child how to be black God loves laughter – and I had to laugh because my first two children were easy compared to this one.
Bahai Community Arbury Jack Guillebeaux & Farzaneh Guillebeaux Jack Guillebeaux, born in North Carolina in 1936, and Farzaneh Rabani Guillebeaux, born in Iran in 1942, were married in 1965 at the height of American Segregation.
Bahais in Iran Born in Tehran, Born in North Carolina Farzaneh Guillebeaux: My father’s brothers hired someone to kill him when he became a Baha’i.
Racism in America Discovering prejudice at a young age Jack Guillebeaux: They burned a cross within a block of our house when I was five or six years old.
Racial Identity Deciding it’s good to be black Jack Guillebeaux: I thought I would try out hating white folk. And that felt like a lot of work.
Bahai Community The liberation of meeting the Baha’is Jack Guillebeaux: The separation was entrenched and it was violent.
Interracial Relationships Unready to say yes – unwilling to say no Jack Guillebeaux: There was something special about her and I told one of my friends that I'm going to marry that one.
Interracial Relationships Life as an interracial couple in 1960s North Carolina Jack Guillebeaux: The worst thing that could happen is for Fafar or I to show fear.
Interracial Relationships Dreaming of the future Farzaneh Guillebeaux: The news of our marriage was like a bomb in Tehran because it was just so rare.
Interracial Relationships Looking for a legal way to marry Farzaneh Guillebeaux: Many of the townspeople showed up at our wedding reception to see if it was really going to happen
Racism in America Laughing at the insanity of racism Jack Guillebeaux: We have constructed a society that pretends to believe there is a religious, moral, social and ethical foundation to racism.
Interracial Relationships Changing hearts through grocery shopping Farzaneh Guillebeaux: We were looking for somewhere to live and I told landlords, I’m white, my husband is African-American, is that a problem? They would bang down the phone.
