Baha'i Doctrine Attracts Non-whites
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'.l he l~tional Leader                                                                                     14   October 20, 1983

Baha'i doctrine attracts non-white:
.               I
By James S. Tinney                         House of Justice. Mitchell, a Jamai-           know who they are, and they realize
In many ways, Baha'is (pro-              can-born American citizen who                  that Black is a wonderful thing to be,
nounced bah-hi) seem to be ahead of        taught at Howard University prior to           but never in opposition to any other
the times. They preach a radical           serving 14 years of the National Spiri-        color."
equality between men and women             tual Assembly, however, is not the               Unlike some Eastern religions
that has earned them persecution in        first Black person at the Baha'is international headquarters in Haifa, Is-         which seem to negate individuality
Third World countries unwilling to                                                        and all race consciousness ( and the
give women full rights. And they not       rael, where its founder Baha'u'llah
was tortured a_nd died a prisoner of           Baha'i religion is unique in that it atonly proclaim racial equality and the                                                     tempts to combine the best elements
end of prejudice as a lofty goal, they     the Turks in 1892.
He was preceded by Amoz Gibson, a          of all the major Eastern and Western
work to make it so.                                                                       religions) , the Baha'i faith does not
Washington, D.C.-born educator who
spent most of his adult life on American Indian reservations, an unusual           of heritage and racial pride in some
kind of colorless integration.
I
expect Black followers to lose a sense 1

sight for many to behold - a Black
man devoted to full time im-                     "We Qelieve in unity with diversity.
provement of the status of First              We do not believe in uniformity," ex-
Americans. But that is as typical of          plains Brady. "If I have non-Black
Baha'i followers as anything. They            Baha'is in my home, I don't serve
have a vision larger than concrete            them a Caesar salad. I serve smothspaces and they regard the entire             ered chicken and collard greens. The
world as their home, not just a parish.       richness of all the human family is va-
They live out their lives as members          lued."
Glenford Mitchell     Magdalen Carney       of an international order that envi-            Similarly, Brady believes that Basions the coming of one world govern-         ha'is are best equipped to deal with
While many Christians just talk          ment.                                         white people in truly mutual, self-reabout it, Baha'is do it. Consequently,         Baha'is may not number very many           specting fashion. She says : "I didn't
this world faith which began in the         heads, as far as counting goes, but           have to learn how to deal with white
19th century in what is now Iran, has       they are not newcomers to the reli-           people, because growing up in a Bagreat appeal for those Black Ameri-         gious scene. Take Dr. 'Wilma Brady,           ha'i home, I had been around white
cans who seek a truly international         for example. A member of the faith            people, and people from every counapproach to religion that is perhaps        who lives in Atlanta, Brady prides            try, all of my life. "
the most racially integrated of any         herself on the fact that she belongs to          This national Baha'i figure sums up
faith on American soil.
The Baha'i faith boasts that more
than 30 percent of.4 its members in the
a four-generation family of Baha 'is.
Not only were her mother and father converts to the faith (they joined
her sense of racial pride by saying, "I
teach my little babies spirituals. I
love the blues. I love being who I am.
I
in the '30s) , but her son and grandchil-     And it's all all right."
U.S . are Afro-Am hican. Only one or        dren are also. Brady is one of the               People join this religion for many '
two other denominations can make            three Black members of the National           reasons. And all kinds and sorts of I
similar claims - among them, most           Spiritual Assembly ; her son, Dr. Rob-        people join. Even among Black Ba- '
notably, the Seventh Day Adventists.        ert Henderson of Atlanta, is another.         ha'is, there is no one kind of back-
But the Baha'is additionally can            In fact, this marks the first time that       ground that seems more attracted to
claim that the remaining 70 percent is      a mother-son combination has ever             the faith·.
not mostly-white either. It is, instead.    served together on that panel.                   Barbara Eaton Bond, a member of
mostly composed of people of color             " In the beginning, it was a struggle      the Local Spiritual Assembly in Washand of Third World origin.                  to live up to the faith ," she says. " But    ington, D.C ., was a single parent, di-
Take the chief governing body of         after a brief period of rebellion as a        vorced, with four little children, when
the 100,000 adherents here in the U.S.      youth, I came back to the Baha'i faith        she decided to become a follower. For
This top-level administration, known        at the age of 15. I couldn 't stay away . I   her, it was the writings of Baha'u'llah
as the National Spiritual Assembly,         missed the freedom and liberty that           that attracted her, especially the two
has nine members, all of whom jointly       comes from knowing who you are as a           chief books by the founder: the Book
share equal r ank. Their nationalities?     Black person. The Baha 'i faith tea-          of Laws and the Book of Certitude. " I
They include an American Indian, an         ches you that - but never defines             stayed up half the night reading those
Asian-American, an Iranian - or             Blackness simply in reaction to some          books, even though I had to get up ear-
Persian, as Baha'is are still wont to       other racial or ethnic group.' '              ly the next morning to go to work."
say - three white Americans and                For Brady, who has reared seven               Someone might get the impression
three Blacks.                               children, all of whom are also now            that most Blacks who join represent a
Until last year, the entire work in      practicing this religion, the Baha'i          well-heeled middle-class with the
this country was directed by another         faith is especially important for Black      built-in advantages of a good educa-
Black Baha 'i member, Glenford              children defining their own sense of          tion. Not so, say Baha' is. On the other
Mitchell. who has since been elevated        identity, and for all Black people who       hand, there is something about the rehy popular vote to become a spiritual       seek to love themselves at the same           ligion's emphasis on universal com-
·servant " nn the worldwide govern-         time they love everyone else. " Little       pulsory education -            meaning
a nce unit known as the lnternationai        Black children in Baha' i families           everybody at all times must be a
~- .J,

National Leader          Octobe'r 20, 1983        Carolina town to another, Deas has al~
most singlehandedly carved out th
"BAHA'I DOCTRINE .'\TTRACTS NON-WHITES" ( con)        territory for her religion. Her conver
sion to this religion came after year
of searching and trying first the Bap
searcher for truth and a learner of            tist, then the Presbyterian, and even-
God's progressive revelation - that            tually the Episcopalian
brings people to a higher level of edu-        denominations. "I've been a searcher
cational achievement that they might           all of my life," she stresses. But now
not have otherwise been motivated to
attain.       ·                                she believes she has found what she
Of course, this is attractive to both        was looking for.
. . the formally education and the self-              Some compare her dedication and
~ducated. No wonder, then, that fa-            zeal to none other than the man for
·mous Black Baha'i members include              whom her school is named. Louis Gre-
Rob~rt Abbott, the founder of the Chi-         gory was the first Black American to
convert to the faith in 1922. A Fisk
graduate, he earned a Howard law degree and then went to work for the ·
Treasury Department before finally
traveling to Egypt to meet the son of
the founder of the Baha'i faith. He
was also one of the nine original members of the very first National Spiritual Assembly.
Today, Black members of the Baha'i religion are very much in the
news in South Carolina. Both whites
Robert Henderson      Alberta Deas           and even some Blacks steeped in tracago Defen_der newspaper; Alain              ditionalism cannot understand why
Locke, the first Black Rhodes schol-         the governor of the state has appointar; Robert Hayden, the acclaimed             ed a Black Baha'i named Alonzo Nespoet; and Matthrew Bullock a Har-            mith to the board of trustees of the
vard-trained lawyer and the first            Citadel College - an elite, private
Black coach at any white college. Diz-       military school. At 26, he is also the
zy Gillespie is also a Baha'i.
But mariy just-as-important but un- ·1      youngest board member ever. But
known farmers and sharecroppers                Baha'is attract the attention and adand poor people, both rural and ur-            miration of nearly everyone who
ban, have also joined. The success of          comes in contact with them.
this religion in the state of South Caro-         Everyone may not agree with their
lina, for instance, is due to the large ·      estimation of Jesus Christ -they say
following among Black rural dwell-            he was one of a line of prophets, and
ers. Probably there are more Black             !lot the son of God in a unique sense of
Baha'is in South Carolina, followed by         incarnation. But no one can gainsay
Georgii,1, than anywhere in the na,tion.       their modeling of a new world order 1
Mrich of the credit for the Carolina        that puts even the United Nations to
growtti belongs to Alberta Deas, who        · shame.
went away to get an education and                 This is probably the only church -
then returned to "dig out" and "build          perhaps the only group of any kind -
up" the l:3aha'i faith in her home area.       that prohibits campaigning for office
Deas now heads the Louis Gregory In-           and relies exclusively on a popula;
stitute in Hemingway, S.C., an adult-        . vote without nominations. It is also •
education school that is named after a         the only <?!le, ~s far as is known, that
Black man and operated primarily by           dictates that whenever there is a tie
Blacks, although persons of all races         between two candidates, the election
attend. The Baha'i school was started         always goes to the non-white person if
in 1972.                                      there is one.
"My grandfather was an AME min-              It's a good rule. And it works for the
ister," Deas states, "and my father           Baha'is. It's the kind of policy that atwas a deacon in the church for 58             tracted people like Dr. Magdalene
years. Now he too is a Baha'i." Not           Cai:ney, who had spent the '60s coordionly him, but 35 other members of             nating desegregation struggles in
Deas' family.                                 Canton, Mississippi. A few days ago,
Operating with a largely volunteer         Carney went to Israel where she is
staff, ~nd doing the legwork herself,        now an "international counselor" (or
travehng every day from one small            world representative) for the religion.
For her, the Baha'i insistence that all
its members eliminate prejudice of
all kinds, both in their own lives and in
..society, forms a line of continuity with
·h~r former civil rights activities.
-- Baha'i Doctrine Attracts Non-whites (Used by permission of the curator)