Richard Hollinger, Baha’is and the Efforts to Achieve Racial Equality in the United States before the 1960s Civil Rights Movement

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The oneness of humanity is a central teaching of the Bahá’í Faith, one that American Bahá’ís gradually became aware of after the establishment of the community in the 1890s. Abdu’l-Bahá told American Bahá’ís that eliminating racism and racial prejudice was of particular importance both to the community and to their nation. Largely in response to this, Bahá’ís began to engage in public discourse and social actions intended to work towards this goal, beginning as early as 1911.

The American Bahá’í community, however, was too small to initiate such changes on its own or to significantly shape the movements and organizations that sought to promote racial equality. Nevertheless, its members were able to position the community as a reliable ally of activists and to exhibit an influence disproportionate to their numbers. There were several reasons for this.

First, Abdu’l-Bahá’s public opposition to racism, his insistence on desegregated Bahá’í meetings, and his speeches at venues such as Howard University and the NAACP Convention were widely reported in the African-American press, resulting in an openness to overtures from Bahá’ís. Second, Bahá’ís in some localities, particularly New York City, cultivated friendships with African-American leaders. Some were attracted to the teachings themselves, and a few local leaders, such as Beatrice Cannady in Portland and Neval Thomas in Washington, D.C. had publicly embraced the Faith by the 1920s. More would do so in later decades. Third, the Bahá’í community provided platforms for activists where Bahá’í teachings on race were also presented, which provided opportunities for social networking and exchanges of views. The Race Amity Conferences, held in the 1920s and 1930s are the best-known of these; such activities were continued, mostly as local level, into the 1960s and beyond. Yet, even before the Race Amity activities began, Green Acre and the Wilhelm property in Teaneck, New Jersey held events featuring leading African-American speakers and performers. In addition, the World Unity conferences that began in the late 1920s also provided some opportunities for the discussion of racial issues and Bahá’í serial publications sometimes published articles by African-American leaders. These ongoing connections helped to keep Bahá’ís abreast of racial issues. Finally, Bahá’ís became known for holding integrated meetings and welcoming diverse people to them. In the New York City area, this was exemplified by the Rainbow Circle begun by Bahá’ís in Harlem about 1920 whose meetings were attended by people from numerous national, ethnic, racial and religious groups at which their diversity was celebrated.

Although most of the collective or institutional actions of the Bahá’í community were in the arena of public discourse, individual Bahá’ís engaged social action that reinforced the credibility of Bahá’ís on the issue of race. Initially, these tended to be the types of activities that were characteristic of Racial Uplift Movement, such as volunteering for an African-American day nursery (daycare) or teaching at a school for African-American children. As time went on, some of these actions began to focus more directly on equal rights. In the 1930s and 1940s, Bahá’ís attempted to integrate public facilities and organizations in some localities; they were involved in the early activities of the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago; one Bahá’í was a volunteer worker for the Fair Employment Practices Committee, reporting companies that engaged in racial discrimination; and Bahá’í students at the University of Chicago participated in a protest against racial segregation in dorms.

In the 1950s, Bahá’í communities and institutions also began to adopt stances that were more directly about equal rights, for example, by advocating for fair housing and fair employment laws, and for the formation of Human Relations Councils.

On the eve of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Bahá’ís were known to most of the national leaders of the NAACP, the Urban League, and the Southern Regional Council—the older, established organizations. They were represented on Human Relations Committees in many locations, and at least two Bahá’ís– Elsie Austin and George Goodman—were prominent enough that they were invited to the national civil rights conferences held in Washington, D.C. for organizational leaders. Yet, the leadership of the established groups was to a large extent eclipsed by those of new organizations such as the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which did not have long relationships with Bahá’ís. Since Bahá’ís were not well-represented in the street protests and sit-ins favored by the new organizations, it would take some time for Bahá’í community to regain its position as an advocate for racial equality.

Richard Hollinger is a retired archivist with graduate degrees in history and a long-time interest in Bahá’í History.  He has  researched and written on the history of the Bahá’í community in the Middle East and North America.  His most recent publication was “The Spread of the Bahá’í Faith among African-Americans, 1898-1925,”  in Loni Bramson and Layli Maparyan ed. The Bahá’í Faith and African American Studies. (New York: Lexington Books, 2023).