- 1911-07-26 —
The First Universal Races Congress was held at the University of London. It was the first important conference in which the British Bahá'ís participated. It was an international symposium on the theme of the brotherhood of humankind and attracted leading politicians, theologians and scholars from the whole of the British Empire and from Europe as well as North America. During the Congress itself there were several presentations from Bahá'ís including the reading of a letter from 'Abdu'l-Bahá who was in Egypt at the time. [NBAD45]
- See 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Letter and here.
- See SoW Vol II No 9 for a report by Wellesley Tudor-Pole, an article by Thorton Chase as well as the letter from 'Abdu'l-Bahá to the conference. See as well Speech for the Universal Races Congress translation and comments by Senn McGlinn.
- A translation was published in "The Christian Commonwealth" on August 2, 1911.
- A bibliography of the presentations, papers and contributions and secondary literature by Ralph Dumain can be found here.
- A paper by Dr W. E. B. DuBois entitled The Negro Race in the United States of America (pp348-364)was also presented at this conference.
- Alain Locke attended. It may have been where he first heard of the Bahá'í faith. He credits this conference as his inspiration to begin the first of five historic lectures on race relation he delivered at Howard University in 1916. [Alain Locke: Faith & Philosophy p43 by Dr Chrisopher Buck]
- See the website of the National Centre for Race Amity.
- The long term goal of the National Center for Race Amity is to have a resolution adopted by both the House and the Senate to have the second Sunday in June declared as an annual Day of Observance in the United States, with the President issuing a Proclamation supporting the passage of the Race Amity Day Resolution.
- 1921-05-19 —
The first Race Amity Conference was held in Washington DC at the old First Congregational Church,
10th & G Streets NW. This church had a reputation for opposition to racial prejudice and had close ties with Howard University. It had a capacity of 2,000. [BW2:281; CoO197; SYH126]
Referring back to this historic event, Abdu'l-Baha, in a Tablet to Roy Williams (an African-American Baha'i from New York City), wrote:
I hope that the Congress of the White and the Colored that was instituted will have great influence in the inhabitants of America, so that everyone may confess and bring witness that the teachings of His Holiness, Baha'u'llah, assembles the White, the Black, the Yellow, the Red and the Brown under the shade of the pavilion of the Oneness of the World of Humanity; and that if the teachings of His Holiness, Baha'u'llah, be not enforced, the antagonism between the Colored and the White, in America, will give rise to great calamities. The ointment for this wound and the remedy for this disease is only the Holy Breaths [Holy Spirit]. If the hearts be attracted to the Heavenly Bounties, surely will the White and the Colored, in a short time, according to the teachings of Baha'u'llah, put away hatred and animosity and [abide in] perfect love and fellowship. (Haifa, August 2, 1921, translated by Touhi [Ruhi] M. Afnan.) [The Bahá'í "Pupil of the Eye" Metaphor—What Does it Mean? by Christopher Buck]
- Martha Root handled the newspaper publicity for the conference and 'Abdu'l-Bahá sent a message to it via Mountfort Mills. [SYH126]
- Mabry and Sadie Oglesby and their daughter Bertha from Boston as well as Agnes Parsons and Louis Gregory were involved. Agnes Parsons, during her pilgrimage in 1920, was instructed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, "I want you to arrange in Washington a convention for unity between the white and colored people."[SETPE1p141-145, BW2p281]
- For details of the conference see the article by Louis Gregory entitled "Inter-racial Amity". [BW2:281-2]
- See article The Bahá'í 'Race Amity' Movement and the Black Intelligentsia in Jim Crow America:Alain Locke and Robert Abbot by Christopher Buck [Bahá'í Studies Review, 17, pages 3-46, 2011] (includes a chronology of 29 Race Amity conferences organized in the United States between 1921 and 1935).
- The Washington Bee
(which, as part of its masthead, billed itself "Washington's Best and Leading
Negro Newspaper") published the text of the entire speech on May 25, 1912,
in an article headlined, "Abdue [ sic] Baha: Revolution in Religious Worship."
- Documentary: 'Abdu'l-Baha's Initiative on Race from 1921: Race Amity Conferences.
- See the film Root of the Race Amiy Movement.
- See the trailer for the film An American Story: Race Amity and the Other Tradition.
- See the website for the National Centre for Race Amity.
- 1921-12-05 —
The second Convention for Amity between the White and Coloured Races was held in Springfield, Massachusetts. [BW2:282; SBR92; SYH113-114, 126]
- Over a thousand people attended. [SW13, 3:51]
- For a report of the convention see SW13, 3:51-5, 601.
- For a photograph see SW13, 3:50.
- 1925-03-20 —
The Palace Hotel, the city's first premier luxury hotel, was the site for the first World Unity Conference in San Francisco. The three day event was organized by Leroy Ioas, Ella Goodall Cooper and Kathryn Frankland in cooperation with Rabbi Rudolph Coffee. Dr. David Starr Jordan, founding president of Stanford University, served as the honorary chairman of the conference. Those who addressed the conference were Rabbi Coffee and Dr. Jordan but also the senior priest of the Catholic Cathedral, a professor of religion, a Protestant minister of a large African-American congregation, distinguished academics, and a foreign diplomat. The last one to address the conference was the Persian Bahá'í scholar, Mírzá Asadu'llah Fádil Mázandarání, the only Bahá'í on the program.
- Ioas provided the National Spiritual Assembly with a report, and he suggested that similar World Unity Conferences be held in other communities. The National Assembly enthusiastically agreed and established a three-person committee, including two of its officers, to assist other localities in their efforts to hold conferences. The committee members were Horace Holley, Florence Reed Morton, and Mary Rumsey Movius. World Unity Conferences were organized for Green Acre-August, Philadelphia-September, Cleveland-October and Chicago in November.
During 1926 and into 1927, eighteen communities held World Unity Conferences using the San Francisco model. These included Worcester, Massachusetts; New York, New York Oct 10-12; Montreal, Canada; Cleveland, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Hartford, Connecticut; New Haven, Connecticut; Chicago, Illinois; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Buffalo, New York. [BN No 12 Jun-Jul 1926 p6-7; The Cause of Universal Peace: 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Enduring Impact by Kathryn Jewett Hogenson; LI45-49; BN No 20 Nov 1927 p5]
- See BA117 for Shoghi Effendi's comments and recommendations.
- 1927-04-08 —
The second conference for racial amity in Washington was held at the Mt Pleasant Congregational Church with the cooperation and participation of other like-minded groups and persons. [BW2p284]
- Members of the Race Amity committee were Louis Gregory; Agnes Parsons, Sia Baghdad, Alain Locke and Pauline Hannen. [SYH146]
- Other conferences were held inNew York state, in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, with monthly amity meetings in Boston and a second one in Washington in November. [SYH146]
- 1927-11-10 — The third convention for amity in inter-racial relations in Washington was held in the Mt. Pleasant Congregational Church. [BW2p285; SYH146]
- 1928-01-20 — The Chicago community held its first Race Amity Conference. Louis Gregory was a speaker at that gathering. [SYH147]
- 1928-02-11 —
The 'Conference for Inter-Racial Amity' was arranged by Inter-Racial Amity Committee of the Bahá'ís of Montreal'. There were three sessions in three venues: the YMCA, Channing Hall, and the Union Congregational Church. Speakers included Louis Gregory ('International Lecturer on Race Relations') and Agnes MacPhail, first Canadian woman Member of Parliament. [The Bahá'í 'Race Amity' Movement and the Black Intelligentsia in Jim Crow America: Alain Locke and Robert Abbot by Christopher Buck page 34, Bahá'í Studies Review, 17, pages 3-46, 2011, BW7p660]
- See BW6p659-664 for the essay by Louis Gregory entitled "Racial Likenesses and Differences: The Scientific Evidence and the Bahá'í Teachings".
- Date conflict: "The Origins of the Bahá'í Community of Canada, 1898-1948 by Will C. van den Hoonaard on page 90 says: "and on 2-4 March 1930 The Montreal Bahá'ís held Race Amity meeting." His source was the National Bahá'í Archives Canada, Notes on Montreal Bahá'í History.
- SYH147 confirms the conference in Montréal was in "mid-February".
- 1932-02-27 — Race Amity gatherings became an effective way promote the principle of racial equality. A number pf banquets were held and at one such gathering held in Los Angeles, the circle of racial amity activities was widened to include not only white and coloured but also Native Americans, as well as Chinese and Japanese. At the banquet dinner, Nellie French represented the National Assembly and Chief Luther Standing Bear, who attended in full regalia with a number of his tribesmen, offered a prayer and spoke of peace as a covenant among all races. A Native American tribal dance followed as part of the programme. [Louis Gregory, 'Racial Amity in America: An Historical Review', in BW7p652-666.]
- 1936-07-00 —
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