Racial Identity Growing up Chinese-American in Queens We lived in a home with several generations under one roof – but outside everyone was from different backgrounds.
Bahai Community Meeting Baha’is in action You can be pulled in many directions at college – my Baha’i friends showed me that faith and action go together.
Racial Identity A family’s legacy My eighth-grade teacher taught us as if the eighth grade was going to be our last year of education.
Civil Rights Movement Civil Rights was just life When I was 14, I got all dressed up to see the national NAACP leader speak at the YWCA.
Racial Discrimination A society built for others The perceptions as that kids at my school wouldn’t amount to anything. But my peers had talents, abilities and intelligence that just weren’t being tapped by the system.
Racial Identity Hold on, just a little while longer I began to understand the oneness of religion after an old Czech woman told me she knew my grandmother in her heart.
Segregation in America The only way to get to heaven My church and community were so segregated that I was in high school before realizing the world wasn't mostly black.
Racism in America A lack of diversity The national conversation on race wasn't on my radar when I was growing up.
Bahai Community Finding hope in a hopeless time Growing up in a Baha’i family in the 1960s gave me hope – otherwise I wouldn’t believe there could be justice for people of color.
Racism in America Moving to the South Living in Tallahassee was one of my most difficult experiences – I had never experienced racism in that way.
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.
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.
Bahai Community The liberation of meeting the Baha’is Jack Guillebeaux: The separation was entrenched and it was violent.
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 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.
Segregation in America Growing up at a golden moment Desegregation of school districts was remarkably successfully – especially in the South.
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.
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.
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.
Racism in America Losing a friend because of race Segregation was evident across the South but it was a taboo subject.
Racial Discrimination Buses, trains and unconscious biases I sat by the African-American all the rest of the way to Washington D.C. because I didn't want to be put off the bus.
Racism in America Staring racism in the face This tall, raw-boned mountaineer came in, sat on my couch, and just looked at me with his hand in his pocket.
Racism in America Please don’t leave a tip We walked through the all-white restaurant as an integrated group. Silence fell, and I thought, what have I done?
