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Selected profiles of African American Baha'is
In observance of African American History Month, we pay tribute to some notable African American Baha’is who have made significant contributions to American society.
Louis G. GregoryLouis G. Gregory (1874-1951)
Louis Gregory became a Baha’i in his mid-30s, drawn by the Faith’s core belief in oneness and unity. For more than 35 years he taught the principles of “race amity” throughout the United States, giving up a successful law practice and real estate business to do so. Mr. Gregory was well-received whenever he spoke at colleges, churches, civic groups and clubs throughout the country.
Whenever he was accompanied by his wife--a white Englishwoman named Louisa Mathew--they received a different reaction because interracial marriage was illegal or unrecognized in a majority of the states at that time. Gregory and other Baha'is encountered other, more serious, responses. One time, the Ku Klux Klan broke up an interracial Baha’i meeting in Atlanta. Other Baha’is to whom Gregory spoke were evicted by landlords. In 2003 the Louis G. Gregory Baha'i Museum was dedicated in Charleston, S.C., to honor one of the most distinguished figures in the Baha’i Faith and a pre-eminent champion of the Faith’s central principle of unity.
After Mr. Gregory died in 1951, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, posthumously conferred upon him the title of “Hand of the Cause,” a spiritual distinction with which only 50 people have been honored in the history of the Baha'i Faith.
Learn much more about his life from the Baha'i Encyclopedia Project article on Louis Gregory.
Dr. Alain LockeAlain Locke (1885-1954)
Alain LeRoy Locke received a PhD in philosophy from Harvard in 1918, was the first black Rhodes Scholar and played a major role in the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance, which started in the 1920s and produced the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Louis Armstrong. In publishing The New Negro, an anthology of writings by African American authors, he gained national prominence as a spokesman for African-Americans. As a humanist and philosopher, Dr. Locke promoted what he called “cultural pluralism,” which contends that cultural groups can maintain their own identity and still be part of a broader culture. Some of his writings, including three essays published for the first time in their entirety, can be found in the 2005 Vol 36. #3 edition of World Order magazine. After becoming a Baha’i in his early 30s, Dr. Locke focused on the Baha’i principle of oneness and wrote: “The intellectual core of the problems of the peace … will be the discovery of the necessary common denominators . . .involved in a democratic world order or democracy on a world scale.”
Download a pdf profile on Alain Locke from the Baha'i children's magazine, Brilliant Star.
Dr. H. Elsie AustinH. Elsie Austin (1908-2004)
Elsie Austin’s life dedication to righting wrongs began at an early age when she pointed out to her 98-percent-white classroom in Cincinnati that the textbook they were reading disparaged the contribution of Africans in world history. Ms. Austin was a pioneer in the civil rights movement, and in 1930 was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Cincinnati College of Law and the first African American woman to serve as Assistant Attorney-General of the State of Ohio.
Ms. Austin had a successful legal career with several U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. Information Agency, where she spent 10 years in Africa working with cultural and educational programs. In 1974, she co-founded the African and American Women’s Association. A Baha’i for 70 years, Ms. Austin served on Baha’i Local Spiritual Assemblies in the Bahamas, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and the United States.
Download a pdf profile on Elsie Austin from the Baha'i children's magazine, Brilliant Star.
Fayard Nicholas Fayard Nicholas (1914-2006)
Self-taught, dapper and imaginative, Fayard Nicholas was one-half of the Nicholas Brothers, a dynamic tap-dancing duo that wowed and amazed audiences for many years with their trademark daring athletic prowess: airborne splits and doing leap-frogging splits down a sweeping staircase.
Mr. Nicholas and his younger brother, Harold, started out in show business by touring with their parents’ vaudeville orchestra.
Mr. Nicholas developed the duo’s trademark balletic and acrobatic style, which they showcased in 65 movies, and which inspired such greats as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Michael Jackson, to whom they taught tap. Like many black performers, the Nicholas Brothers persevered despite facing racial obstacles in Hollywood and on the club scene.
Dizzy GillespieDizzy Gillespie (1917-1993)
John Birks Gillespie, jazz trumpeter extraordinaire, was among the top kings of bebop, a style of jazz popular in the 1940s characterized by fast tempos and improvisations. Gillespie was known for his puffed-cheek style of blowing—the consequence of being self-taught—and his onstage antics, which ranged from deadpan to wacky.
He also was known for being a generous mentor to many musicians. After becoming a Baha’i in 1968, Mr. Gilllespie became an international ambassador and spokesman for the Faith. In his memoirs, he wrote that “Becoming a Baha’i changed my life in every way and gave me a new concept of the relationship between God and man—between man and his fellow man—man and his family.”
In Dizzy: To be or not to bop : the autobiography of Dizzy Gillespie with Al Fraser, Mr. Gillespie mused that his “role in music is just a stepping stone to a higher role.”
Download a pdf profile on Dizzy Gillespie from the Baha'i children's magazine, Brilliant Star.
William H. SmithWilliam H. “Smitty” Smith (1946- )
Featured in the November 2005 Sports Illustrated cover story, “Groundbreakers,” about high-school star athletes who broke the color barrier in southern college football, William H. Smith has spent his life promoting social justice and race unity. He has been a civil rights advocate, businessman, educator, film and video producer and, since 1994, the (first) executive director of the Center for Diversity in the Communications Industries at Emerson College in Boston.
After serving as a medic in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Bronze Stars and the Combat Medic Badge, Mr. Smith earned his doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts. In 2000 he played a major role in the historic Joint Congressional Resolution establishing a National Day of Honor to recognize the service of African American and other minority soldiers in World War II.
In conjunction with that event, Mr. Smith produced an award-winning documentary, “The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices,” which aired on PBS. Among his many accolades, he received the keys to the city of his birthplace, Greenville, S.C., as part of Dr. William “Smitty” Smith Day.
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Newly published speeches/essays by Alain Locke available online
Newly published speeches and essays by Alain Locke available online: Christopher Buck and Betty J. Fisher, ed. and intro., “Alain Locke: Four Talks Redefining Democracy, Education, and World Citizenship.” World Order 38.3 (2006/2007): 21–41. Features four previously unpublished speeches by Alain Locke: 1. “The Preservation of the Democratic Ideal” (1938 or 1939); 2. “Stretching Our Social Mind” (1944); 3. “On Becoming World Citizens” (1946); 4. “Creative Democracy” (1946 or 1947).] Download: http://christopherbuck.com/Buck_PDFs/Buck-Fisher_Locke_2008.pdf Christopher Buck and Betty J. Fisher, ed. and intro., “Alain Locke in His Own Words: Three Essays.” World Order 36.3 (2005): 37–48. Features four previously unpublished works by Alain Locke: 1. “The Moon Maiden” (37); 2. “The Gospel for the Twentieth Century” (39–42); 3. “Peace between Black and White in the United States” (42–45); 4. “Five Phases of Democracy” (45–48). Download: http://christopherbuck.com/Buck_PDFs/Buck_Alain_Locke_2005.pdf
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African American Baha'is of note
Robert Abbott and David Kellum
Thank you for pointing out Robert Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender newspaper and a well-known figure in the Chicago area. There are so many wonderful African American Baha'is that could and will be included in future "selected profiles."
In 1929, Robert Abbott and David Kellum founded the Bud Billiken Parade, which is known as the largest African-American parade, and the second largest parade overall, in the United States. Read more about them in our related story: Baha'is love a parade.
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The first recorded Africans
The first recorded Africans in British North America (including most of the future United States) arrived in 1619 as indentured servants who settled in Jamestown, Virginia. As English settlers died from harsh conditions more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Africans for many years were similar in legal position to poor English indenturees, who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America.Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom.They raised families, marrying other Africans and sometimes intermarrying with Native Americans or English settlers.By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards.
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As early as 1964, A. W. F. Edwards and others had discovered that three populations in Africa were related but distinguishable on the basis of a relatively small set of genetic information (20 alleles). Those populations were called Tigre (Ethiopians), Bantu (in southern Africa), and Ghanaian (West Africa).
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The Bahá'í Faith is a
The Bahá'í Faith is a diverse and widespread religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia. Bahá'í sources usually estimate the worldwide Bahá'í population to be above 5 million.Most encyclopedias and similar sources estimate between 5 and 6 million Bahá'ís in the world in the early 21st century.In 1946, a great pioneer movement began with, for example, sixty percent of the British Bahá'í community eventually relocating.See also the Ten Year Crusade. The religion is almost entirely contained in a single, organized, hierarchical community, but the Bahá'í population is spread out into almost every country and ethnicity in the world, being recognized as the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity.See Bahá'í statistics. The only countries with no Bahá'ís documented as of 2008 are Vatican City and North Korea.
The first mention of the
The first mention of the Samoan Islands in Bahá'í literature is in a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916-1917 by `Abdu'l-Bahá, head of the religion until 1921 when he died, asking the followers of the religion to travel to other countries; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh of the tablets was the first to mention several island nations in the Pacific Ocean. Written on April 11, 1916, it was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 — after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu. The seventh tablet was translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on April 4, 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on December 12, 1919.
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The Bahá'í Faith is a
The Bahá'í Faith is a diverse and widespread religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia. Bahá'í sources usually estimate the worldwide Bahá'í population to be above 5 million.Most encyclopedias and similar sources estimate between 5 and 6 million Bahá'ís in the world in the early 21st century.In 1946, a great pioneer movement began with, for example, sixty percent of the British Bahá'í community eventually relocating.See also the Ten Year Crusade. The religion is almost entirely contained in a single, organized, hierarchical community, but the Bahá'í population is spread out into almost every country and ethnicity in the world, being recognized as the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity.See Bahá'í statistics. The only countries with no Bahá'ís documented as of 2008 are Vatican City and North Korea.
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African Americans (also
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa.In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
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The African continent is home to many different ethnic and racial groups, with wide-ranging phenotypical traits, both indigenous and foreign to the continent.Many of these populations have diverse origins, with differing cultural, linguistic and social traits and mores. Distinctions within Africa's geography, such as the varying climates across the continent, have also served to nurture diverse lifestyles among its various populations. The continent's inhabitants live amidst deserts and jungles, as well as in modern cities across the continent.
The first mention of the
The first mention of the Samoan Islands in Bahá'í literature is in a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916-1917 by `Abdu'l-Bahá, head of the religion until 1921 when he died, asking the followers of the religion to travel to other countries; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan
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