In the October 12, 1952 issue of Ebony magazine, a feature article appeared titled, “Baha’i Faith, Only Church in World That Does Not Discriminate.” 

At that time, Ebony magazine enjoyed a huge share of the African-American media market across the United States and wielded considerable influence on popular Black opinion. 

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Displayed prominently on page 39 was a photograph of the Baha’i intellectual and Harlem Renaissance hero, Alain Locke, featured in a number of articles in this series. Next to the picture of Alain Locke is a photograph of Robert S. Abbott, founder of The Chicago Defender, which, prior to World War I, emerged as the nation’s most influential Black weekly newspaper. Abbott’s original motto for the Defender (self-styled as the “World’s Greatest Weekly”) was “American race prejudice must be destroyed.” 

The Defender had one animating impulse as the hallmark of its outspoken journalism — a strident and trenchant criticism of racism, bigotry, and discrimination against African Americans, quite similar to the Baha’i teachings on the issue, expressed here by Abdu’l-Baha in a talk he gave in Montreal in 1912:

All prejudices are against the will and plan of God. Consider, for instance, racial distinction and enmity. All humanity are the children of God; they belong to the same family, to the same original race. There can be no multiplicity of races, since all are the descendants of Adam. This signifies that racial assumption and distinction are nothing but superstition. …

Therefore, all prejudices between man and man are falsehoods and violations of the will of God. God desires unity and love; He commands harmony and fellowship.

The Chicago Defender’s founder, Robert Sengstacke Abbott (1868–1940) — LL.M., Legum Magister, meaning master of laws in Latin, an internationally recognized post-Juris Doctor (JD) law degree — was one of the greatest newspaper publishers of all time. 

The acclaimed sociologist Gunnar Myrdal (awarded The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1974), in his magisterial work “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy” — cited in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas — proclaimed that the Black press was “‘the greatest single power in the Negro race’.” 

Abbott’s motto, “With drops of ink, we make millions think,” frequently appeared in The Chicago Defender. In fact, he had the power to influence and, therefore, change the entire United States of America, which he did by launching and catalyzing what is known as the “Great Migration,” when more than six million African Americans moved from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from around 1916 to 1970. Mr. Abbott became a Baha’i in 1934, thereby publicizing an otherwise little-known social movement at the time into something that would become better-known thanks to the many articles on the Baha’i Faith that The Chicago Defender would publish during Abbott’s illustrious and distinguished career.

Since the 1912 visit of Abdu’l-Baha to the United States, the Black media mogul had been a long-time admirer and friend of the Baha’i Faith. (Mark Perry effectively rediscovered Robert S. Abbott’s compelling Baha’i story, including information published in this article).

In 1912, the year the Defender’s first newsstand sales began, Abbott attended Abdu’l-Baha’s first of three visits to Chicago in a meeting held at Jane Addams’s Hull House. As Abbott recalled years later, Abdu’l-Baha placed his hand on Abbott’s head and said that “he would get from me some day a service for the benefit of humanity.” Perry notes that, as early as 1924, Abbott and his wife, Helen, appeared in the Chicago Baha’i community membership list. Abbott read and studied a number of Baha’i books prior to becoming a Baha’i during the 26^th annual National Baha’i Convention of 1934, held in Foundation Hall at the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois.

One news story, published in March 1924 in The Chicago Defender, reported that Robert S. Abbott presented a lecture, “Friendly Race Relations,” to students and faculty at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, under the auspices of the “Race Friendship League.” In describing the gist of the lecture, the Defender reporter wrote: 

Students of Northwestern University, Evanston, gathered recently at Garrott Hall, under the auspices of the Race Friendship League, a body of professors and students intensely interested in race relations. The speaker of the evening was Robert S. Abbott of the Chicago Defender. …

Dr. Abbott, as the guest at the meeting, chose as his topic, “Friendly Race Relations.” By way of introduction, attention was directed to the great Bahai movement that is attempting, through religious forces of the present day, to bring about the hoped-for fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. …

“I feel,” said Dr. Abbott, “that America will never take its place alongside the nations in the world until she makes up her mind that the black man and the black woman, the black boy and the black girl are sharing and sharing alike with the whites of this country in everything that makes for peace, happiness and contentment. I feel that no church has done its full duty to God and man until its doors are thrown open to all, regardless of race or color. When all races come together and serve God under one vine and fig tree, and not until then, will the blessings of God come to this nation of ours.”

– “Northwestern Students Hear Editor Abbott,” The Chicago Defender (National edition) March 22, 1924, p. 4. 

Little is known about Abbott’s relationship with the Baha’i community in the intervening years prior to his declaration of faith in 1934. Yet, as noted and quoted above, it is noteworthy that Dr. Abbott publicly promoted the ideals of the Baha’i Faith a full decade before his public declaration of his faith as a Baha’i.

Dr. Zia Bagdadi, perhaps the most active and prominent promoter of the Baha’i Faith among Chicago’s African Americans, had served as one of Abdu’l-Baha’s attendants in 1912. Perry notes that “it is quite likely that Dr. Bagdadi first met Abbott at the Hull House talk and was present when Abdu’l-Baha spoke to the fledgling publisher.” After Abbott became a Baha’i, Shoghi Effendi (Abdu’l-Baha’s grandson and appointed successor) wrote to Dr. Bagdadi, stating that Abbott “may truly be regarded as your spiritual son,” which shows that friendship with Dr. Bagdadi was Abbott’s primary connection with the Baha’i community before his conversion. (See Perry, “Robert S. Abbott and the Chicago Defender,” New Pittsburgh Courier (Nov. 11, 1995), p. 7.)

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Abbott’s declaration of faith as a Baha’i occurred on Sunday, June 3, 1934, the final day of the 1934 National Baha’i Convention, held in “Foundation Hall” at the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. Dr. Bagdadi and the convention delegates witnessed and described a “touching and impressive incident,” which he recounted a few days later in a letter to Shoghi Effendi:

Just before the closing of this Convention, speaking on the subject of publicity, I happened to think of Doctor Abbot [sic], Negro publisher of a newspaper in Chicago. I mentioned how I succeeded in publishing Baha’i articles on the first page of his paper. As I finished this statement, someone in the audience shouted, “Dr. Abbot [sic] is now here with us.” The Delegates expressed their desires to hear a word from him, and he responded by declaring his faith in the Baha’i Cause! This was one of the happiest moments in the Convention.

– Ibid.

On June 9, 1934, The Chicago Defender itself reported on the 1934 American Baha’i national convention, stating, in part: 

Robert S. Abbott, editor and publisher of The Chicago Defender, addressed the delegates and visitors to the convention Sunday afternoon. His talk was one of the highlights of the program. The editor is intensely interested in the Baha’i movement, and is thoroughly in accord with its broad principles as was evidenced by his excellent remarks during the convention.

– “Baha’i Delegates End 26th Annual Convention: Followers of Faith Gather at Temple in Wilmette.” The Chicago Defender (June 9, 1934), 4.

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As recounted by Louis Gregory, this is what Dr. Abbott said:

Dear friends: Sorry I am hoarse and do not want to find it necessary to speak all over again. Happy am I to see people whom I have been praying to God all my life to see, those who recognize me as a man. Everywhere I have travelled I have been received as a man save in my own country. Here my people have been cruelly treated and even burned at the stake! … Abdu’l-Baha when in America put His hand on my head and told me that He would get from me some day a service for the benefit of Humanity. I am identifying myself with this Cause and I go up with you or down with you. Anything for this Cause! Let it go out and remove the darkness everywhere. Save my people! Save America from herself!

– Perry, “Robert S. Abbott and the Chicago Defender,” New Pittsburgh Courier (Nov. 11, 1995), p. 7.

Abbott’s interest in the Baha’i religion was no mere passing fancy; rather, his passion and fervent enthusiasm were translated into a significant number of articles on the Baha’i movement that Dr. Abbott published (and sometimes personally authored) in The Chicago Defender, which reached a remarkably wide readership within the Black community across the United States. 

Note: This two-part essay originated in this previously-published journal article by the author: “The Baha’i ‘Race Amity’ Movement and the Black Intelligentsia in Jim Crow America: Alain Locke and Robert S. Abbott.” Baha’i Studies Review 17 (cover date, 2011; publication date, 2012): pp. 3–46, available online: https://bahai-library.com/buck_race_amity_movement.

Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, politician, and Union Army intelligence operative once said, “I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.”

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It is Tubman’s words that I resonate with when I think of American freedom. America celebrates Independence Day every July 4th with symbolic, colorful fireworks displays. However, as the inaugural celebration took place in 1776, the day designated as the birth of the United States, there was no joy for many in the African American community. While many enslaved Africans fought alongside the colonists against the British in the Revolutionary War, the hope of freedom was a narrative that did not come to fruition. I’m reminded as I reflect on how in 1619, the first enslaved Africans were forced on the land known as the Virginia Colony to begin hell on earth. 

Baha’u’llah, the prophet, and founder of the Baha’i Faith, when referencing the importance and purpose of black people compared them to the Black pupil of the eye. That is in the Black pupil is the Divine spirit of creation that shines and provides an important balance in God’s creation of humanity. Man’s false narrative of dominance based upon melanin, eye color, and hair texture in this explanation then holds no credence in the Divine creation of humanity. 

That is spiritual truth, but history written from a Eurocentric perspective defines this time and those of African descent as less than human. What saddens me most is I did not learn the truth about black people in my formal education, I did not learn of the majesty of my ancestry and the African continent. I did not learn of the advanced civilization that taught the American colonists how to irrigate land. I did not learn that my ancestors communicated in highly sophisticated ways that did not require words. I did not learn that my ancestors just as with the growth of the European continent, provided advanced education and language translation of text to “America the Free.”

I was taught that Africa was a place of jungles and that my ancestry represented minimal intelligence and animalistic behavior. It was — and is — this Eurocentric bigotry that provided the justification to marginalize and rewrite a false narrative to history. A history that does not acknowledge Juneteenth. 

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day that Union Army General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and announced the enslaved were free.

His message was delivered some two years after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation set forth by President Abraham Lincoln. While in theory, the enslaved were free, these rules did not apply to Texas, specifically in Galveston, the birthplace of Juneteenth. This is based on a few factors:

• 250,000 enslaved individuals of the Africana Community provided for the wealth of the Texas economy as unpaid labor.
• The news that Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee had surrendered in Western Texas took more than two months to spread.
• The Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t enforced in Texas.
• Slavers in Texas beat, lynched, and murdered the freed people that tried to leave plantations.
• On the first anniversary of Juneteenth, the vastly emerging segregation laws prohibited the use of public places and parks to celebrate the holiday.

And just as U.S. history has marginalized, and to much extent does not mention the many contributions of the African American community to the foundation and continuum of growth in the country, it is no surprise to me that Juneteenth is still not a national holiday. That it is not is evidence that the cancer of racism still exists in the United States — a cancer that ignited the Civil Rights Movement, the Power Movement, and most recently, the Black Lives Matter movement, which all advocate for truth and justice for the black community in America.

As I reflect on my religious community, the Baha’i Faith, I see a microcosm in some respects to the many challenges in the United States. As Barbara Talley, a longtime Baha’i and visionary behind the “Pupil of the Eye” conference stated in a recent interview with Bahai.us, “The pupil is essential for light, and without the pupil the person is blind. Humanity needs this light, which only the dark people can provide.” 

I feel that Juneteenth should be a celebration and national holiday with the same promotion as America’s Independence Day. Juneteenth is the symbolic representation of the ultimate sacrifice paid by the many souls who fought for freedom and justice. It is a representation of the continued struggle for all to strive and work towards in small and large efforts as Baha’u’llah explained, “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.”

As we are in a time where protests are happening across the nation. I see individuals of different ethnic backgrounds marching and holding signs that predominantly say, “Black Lives Matter.” I hope these individuals really know just how much the lives of black people matter. Now is the time to exemplify the true history of America. My family, spread from Texas to Mississippi fought for freedom so that one day, their descendants, could have opportunities. For them I work as hard as I can each day as an academic, as a social justice community organizer, as a filmmaker, as a husband, as a son, and most importantly, as a world citizen of God. 

The people of African descent, the African community matter, and Juneteenth is a celebratory time to honor the truth of the words written so long ago, “We the People” —people who built this country and continue to provide to the diversity and richness of the world. The Pupil of the Eye, as ordained by almighty God, you must know that you matter, your voice matters, your efforts, matter. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”