Dr. Elsie Austin (1908-2004) became well known as a woman of many “firsts” in what she termed her triple minority status “as a woman, an African American, and a member of a new Faith.” As a student and young professional, her talents were clear. Archival resources document experiences with individuals, communities and institutions which influenced and shaped her awareness. These also may have informed, in specific ways, her wisdom and sensitivity as an agent of change while working in Africa.
This research led to learning in depth about some less-discussed experiences in her African-American culture and Bahá’í communities that impacted her development. Archival resources further illuminate her relationships with her nuclear and ancestral family; the significance of her parents’ experience in the early years of the Tuskegee and Prairie View Institutes; the fabric of community created in the Cincinnati neighborhood where she grew up; the family’s experience at the Harriet Beecher Stowe school (which Elsie Austin attended and where her aunt and mother taught long term); her role with the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; and her love of dramatic arts. She used her dramatic sensibilities to develop the art of public discourse as an instrument to stimulate progress and meaningful change. These, combined with her active service to the world Faith she embraced, informed the skills and perspective she brought to her years in Africa.
Much remains to be explored regarding Elsie Austin’s role as a catalyst for social change and for the advancement of women in Africa. This would include studying, for instance, how she operationalized her conviction that all women have significant insights and experience necessary to the development of their nations and the establishment of peace. The practical steps she took stimulated significant change in more than thirteen countries.
Juliet Gentzkow studied comparative religion as an undergraduate at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she encountered the Bahá’í teachings in the home of Sam and Mimi McClellan. Further training in education led to directing a small school for 13 years, after which she served in Guyana for four years and Haiti for one, learning to implement the Ruhi Institute process in two distinctive cultures. A Social Work degree then opened the door to accompanying people at all stages of the life cycle, including work with families and children and then intensive work in hospice and bereavement care. More recently, she focused past learning on biographical writing. Her first book, “The Art of Empowering Others,” explores Mrs. Gayle Woolson’s life of service in Central and South America under the ministry of Shoghi Effendi (1937-1963). Recent research involves the life and times of Dr. Helen Elsie Austin, whose service spanned a similar trajectory in time, only with a focus on Africa.
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