This Noble Destiny

Abdu’l-Baha, the Early Baha’is of Washington D.C., and the Struggle for Racial Unity

This new book from Hillary Ioas Chapman and Lex Musta, with a forward by Derik Smith, explores the racial division and bigotry ‘Abdu’l-Baha encountered when he first arrived in the United States in 1912, and the ways in which the members of the community of Washington, D.C. stepped up to meet the challenge of addressing it.

Washington, D.C. was a city whose society reflected the deep racial divide that plagued the country as a whole. ‘Abdu’l-Baha rejected racial prejudice and found open and receptive hearts  willing to listen and to work for the unity of humanity. Louis Gregory, a Black American lawyer, responded wholeheartedly to this message of unity, becoming one of the most important teachers of the Baha’i Faith in the U.S. Pauline Hannen, a White woman of German background, had grown up in segregation yet once imbued by the spirit of ‘Abdu’l-Baha made every effort to share the Baha’i Teachings. She disregarded all social prejudices to share with Black Americans, visiting their homes and inviting them into hers. Her husband Joseph became one of Gregory’s close friends in the Cause. Agnes Parsons was a woman socially prominent in White society. Once ‘Abdu’l-Baha asked her to spearhead a major race-amity effort, she worked to overcome the prejudices of the social circles in which she moved.

You will also meet and learn about other early Black American Baha’is of the D.C. community including; Carrie York, Pocahontas Pope, Rhoda Turner, the Dyers, Coralie Franklin Cooke, and others as they endeavored to make a spiritual ideal a reality and struggled to conquer the ingrained patterns and prejudices of their nation.