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Winter 1993-94

World Order

ESTABLISHING THE EQUALITY
OF THE SEXES
EDITORIAL

WOMEN AND MEN: PARTNERSHIP
FOR A HEALTHY PLANET
BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

EQUALITY BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF AUSTRALIA

WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN BAHÁ’Í
COMMUNITY, 1900-1912
ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
IN THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH, 1898-1919
GWENDOLYN ETTER-LEWIS

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World Order

VOLUME 25, NUMBER 2

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE, AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN
THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY
RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:
FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
BETTY J. FISHER
HOWARD GAREY
ROBERT H. STOCKMAN
JAMES D. STOKES

Consultant in Poetry:
HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

Subscriber Service:
JENIFER HALLOCK

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD ORDER Subscriber Service, Bahá’í National Center, Wilmette, IL 60091. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts can be typewritten or computer generated. They should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should send four copies—an original and three legible copies—and should keep a copy. Return postage should be included. Send manuscripts and other editorial correspondence to WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091.

Subscription rates: U.S.A., 1 year, $10.00; 2 years, $18.00; single copies, $3.00. All other countries, 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies, $3.00. Airmail, 1 year, $20.00; 2 years, $38.00.

WORLD ORDER is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office.

Copyright © 1994, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
ISSN 0043-8804

IN THIS ISSUE

2   Establishing the Equality of the Sexes

Editorial

4   Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

9   Advancing the Equality of the Sexes

9   Women and Men: Partnership for a

Healthy Planet

by the Bahá’í International Community

12   Equality between Men and Women

by the National Spiritual Assembly of the

Bahá’ís of Australia

15   Poem by Marlaina B. Tanny

17   Women in the American Bahá’í Community,

1900-1912

by Robert H. Stockman

34   Poems by Sheila Banani, Joan Imig Taylor,

Diana Malouf, and Phyllis K. Peterson

41   African American Women in the Bahá’í Faith,

1898-1919

by Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis

58   Poems by Marcia L. Daoud

61   The Mind’s Spat with the Heart

a book review by Sen McGlinn

64   Authors 8C Artists in This Issue

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Establishing the Equality
of the Sexes

OVER THOUSANDS of years the long social evolution of humanity produced many norms, institutions, customs, and habits that reflected particular levels of development, specific needs, and particular requirements of the times. Thus the most common means of resolving conflict has been war; the most common form of government, despotism; the most common method of accumulating wealth, economic exploitation. In societies where physical strength determined status, where war and the hunt were dominant activities, men had an undoubted advantage over women. Patriarchy was not an evil intention. It stemmed from biology and the needs of a primitive way of life. Inequality was a condition of survival and was universally accepted. Even the great religions of the last five millennia endorsed that inequality.

Although conditions have changed long ago, habits persist. The inequality of sexes, together with racism and nationalism, is one of the scandals of our age. It is enshrined in law; it infects art and literature; it colors our very perception of reality.

The Bahá’í position on the equality of women and men has been stated clearly and emphatically by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who, early in this century, asked: “Neither sex is superior to the other in the sight of God. Why then should one sex assert the inferiority of the other, withholding just rights and privileges as though God had given His authority for such a course of action?” Enumerating the basic principles of the Bahá’í Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated:

. . . Bahá’u’lláh emphasized and established the equality of man and woman. . . . Woman’s lack of progress and proficiency has been due to her need of equal education and opportunity. Had she been allowed this equality, there is no doubt she would be the counterpart of man in ability and capacity. The happiness of mankind will be realized when women and men coordinate and advance equally, for each is the complement and helpmeet of the other.

And again:

. . . among the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh is the equality of women and men. The world of humanity has two wings—one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible. Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be.

Like all change, the change in the status of women and the establishment of the equality of sexes is disturbing and painful to many. Yet it must proceed with accelerating speed if humanity is to eliminate the age-old injustice of oppressing and demeaning half of its own self.

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

IN THIS issue we present two statements about the equality of women and men from official bodies of the Bahá’í Administrative Order: one from the Bahá’í International Community, the other from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia. They convey similar messages but from different perspectives. In one, broad goals are sketched out. In the other, the focus is narrowed to the members of a particular community; it recognizes the difficulties of transition to a condition of true equality—social and spiritual—in terms of a particular culture and presents the means of dealing with it. One may imagine that each community around the world would have its own particular message, solving local problems in such a way as to contribute to the unified fabric of the whole world.

Both statements look toward an ideal future. But it is also instructive to see how the realization of the ideal of equality of the sexes has been tackled in the past. Dealing with the history of this transition are two articles about the early days of the Bahá’í community in the United States. In Robert H. Stockman’s “Women in the American Bahá’í Community, 1900-1912” we can follow the fortunes of equality of the sexes as this ideal began to evolve in a culture that was not prepared for it; women as well as men were often reluctant to accept a role of full equality of the sexes. The concept of the “virtuous woman” (which would probably be defined quite differently today, even by those of us who still believe in virtue) was slanted more toward complementarity than equality. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s typically firm and gentle hand can be discerned as He adapted changing administrative structures to local or regional needs even before He applied them in North America, as the infant community tottered on toward the unity that we know today.

Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis’ “African American Bahá’í Women, 1898-1919” recounts the accomplishments of members of two intersecting sets of minorities in the quest for equality, women and African Americans. In this instance, the story is not so much that of institutional barriers to equality as it is of strong-minded, strong-willed women undaunted by obstacles, perceived as such or not, in the achievement of their lofty goals. It is a truly inspiring story not only to women of color but to all readers, Bahá’í or not, in need of reaffirmation of the power of will and conviction in the service of humankind.

Finally, a tribute, gently critical where needed, to our beloved Bahá’í poet, Roger White, whose years of service at the Bahá’í World Center in Haifa, Israel, were rounded off by a last volume of verse, Notes Postmarked The Mountain of God. The review is offered by Sen McGlinn, whose own poetry has appeared in WORLD ORDER.

* * *

The editors of WORLD ORDER together with thousands of other Bahá’ís throughout the world mourn the passing on 16 October 1993 of Marzieh Gail, a distinguished [Page 5] writer whose activities spanned most of the twentieth century.

Born to an Iranian father, Ali-Kuli Khan Nabilu’d Dawlih, and an American mother, Florence Breed, Marzieh Khanum was equally at home in both parents’ cultures. Although she wrote in English, Persian was a part of her heritage that she used all her life.

Educated at the University of California and at Stanford, Marzieh Khanum lived for many years in Iran, Europe, and various parts of the United States, absorbing information and honing her talent as writer and translator.

Her books of history and biography, and her many essays and articles, some written for WORLD ORDER, have instructed and given pleasure to unnumbered readers. However, her major contribution was in the field of translation from the Persian. She began that work in her youth in collaboration with her father and continued with it for the rest of her life. One need only mention The Secret of Divine Civilization to acknowledge the debt English-speaking Bahá’ís owe to Marzieh Gail.

* * *

The editors of WORLD ORDER also mourn the passing of two poets who have enriched our lives in many ways. William Stafford, WORLD ORDER’s poetry editor from 1981 to 1983, passed away on 28 August 1993. His resignation from the Editorial Board was infused with the gentleness and wit that characterized his association with the magazine and, indeed, his entire life: “My next birthday is my seventieth, and I am trying to ease into a new pace of things, including the pace of enticing someone else to be poetry editor so that I can write more (and maybe be a worthy contributor rather than an official).”

Professor Stafford’s accomplishments are myriad. He taught English at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon for thirty-one years, giving generously to students and accepting suggestions about his own poetry from first-year students and colleagues alike. He once wrote WORLD ORDER, saying, “I hope you will be especially alert to counsel me if the poem of mine I am sending does not seem suitable.”

Professor Stafford was a former poetry consultant to the Library of Congress and poet laureate of Oregon. He wrote thirty-five books, winning a National Book Award for Poetry for one of them. He was a Guggenheim fellow for creative writing, received an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1991 was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts with a senior fellowship in literature for a lifetime of “extraordinary contribution to American literature.”

As his many friends will attest, Professor Stafford was a remarkable human being. He was totally without a poet’s or professor’s affectation. He was gentle, kind, tolerant, unassuming, always inclusive, a lover of nature, especially of the woods and the desert. In his poetry he achieved [Page 6] something that was genuinely American, in the best sense of the word.

Roger White, a poet and author loved by Bahá’ís around the world, passed away on 10 April 1993. A Canadian by birth, Roger was by choice a citizen of the world.

Before he became a Bahá’í in the 1950s, Roger had excelled at many things; he was a Justice of the Peace, a court reporter, an interior designer, a journalist, an editor in the Canadian House of Commons. But his greatest work was his forty-year commitment to the Bahá’í Faith, where he put to use his excellent skills as journalist, secretary, editor (he compiled and edited a number of volumes of The Bahá’í World), and friend who encouraged and brought laughter to countless persons around the world with his frequent letters, copies of cartoons, and carefully chosen news clippings.

Roger White is perhaps best known for his ten volumes of poetry and prose, one of which is reviewed in this issue. He was committed to using his pen to express his deep faith and to integrating belief and art. Serious, but always with a twinkle in his eye, Roger once wrote that “Art has a message for us. It says: care, grow, develop, adapt, overcome, nurture, protect, foster, cherish. It says: your reality is spiritual. It says achieve your full humanness. It invites us to laugh, reflect, cry, strive, persevere. It says rejoice!”

We are grateful for what William Stafford and Roger White have shared with us. We miss them both.

* * *

In our Fall 1993 issue we published accounts by two early American Bahá’ís— Thornton Chase, who in 1894 became one of the first Americans to accept the Bahá’í Faith, and Juanita Storch, a sixteen year old who met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in California in 1912. Because the issue was devoted to a commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the passing of Bahá’u’lláh and the inauguration of His Covenant, we did not feel it was appropriate to publish photographs of Chase and Storch. Now we would like to break with the traditional format of Interchange and share with you photographs of them, both remarkable individuals in their own right.

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THORNTON CHASE

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* * *

For those interested in the technical side of publishing, our Fall 1993 issue marked a new era in how WORLD ORDER is published, for it was our first issue that was desktop published—using PageMaker software —at the Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Wilmette, with high-resolution output from a service bureau in Indiana. Except [Page 7] for the photographs, which are scanned by our printer in Michigan, the camera-ready copy for this issue has all been produced in-house using a 1200 D.P.I. LaserMaster II plain-paper typesetter.

The change from more traditional typesetting to desktop publishing means that all articles and all editor-written copy now are put into final form in WordPerfect files and coded before being transferred to PageMaker for layout. The change also means that it has become more critical for authors to submit not only hard copies of their articles and reviews but WordPerfect disks as well (please ask for instruction on how to prepare the WordPerfect files to save us time).

Other changes effected by desktop publishing the magazine include a decrease in the time it takes to go from completed manuscript to final page proofs and a significant decrease in the cost of preparing camera-ready copy.

From 1966, when WORLD ORDER began publishing, to 1982, the magazine was set in hot-metal type. Accents for Persian and Arabic words were not available and had to be drawn in by hand on the film. In 1982, when hot-metal type was no longer available, we switched to cold type and worked hard to approximate the look and feel of the hot-metal Garamond type in which the magazine was originally set. Switching to desktop publishing has brought another round of trying to keep the same look and feel in the type used in the magazine, while at the same time taking advantage of a new look in an old typeface, reducing costs, and speeding up production schedules.

Our cover, too, has a new look, as of our Fall 1993 issue, thanks to John Solarz, who in 1977 provided a variation on the magazine’s original cover design—and who since then has chosen many show-stopping photographs and color combinations. Please let us know what you think about all the changes.

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JUANITA STORCH

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[Page 9]

Advancing the Equality
of the Sexes

WORLD ORDER has had a standing concern for the status of women, their equality with men being a fundamental principle of the Bahá’í Faith. Over the years we have published articles on various aspects of this important and difficult problem.

The two documents that appear below demonstrate the commitment of the Bahá’ís to the task of establishing equality of the sexes. “Women and Men: Partnership for a Healthy Planet” is a statement that was presented by the Bahá’í International Community to the World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet in Miami in November 1991. “Equality between Men and Women” is a letter addressed to the Bahá’ís of Australia by their elected governing body, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia. Together the two documents give an idea of the position of the Bahá’ís on an issue that has emerged as one of the most significant, and at times misunderstood, issues of our time.

—THE EDITORS

Women and Men:
Partnership for a Healthy Planet

A STATEMENT PRESENTED BY THE BAHÁ’Í INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO THE WORLD WOMEN’S CONGRESS FOR A HEALTHY PLANET, MIAMI, NOVEMBER 1991

Reprinted by permission of the Bahá’í International Community, New York, New York.

“THE WELL-BEING of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” These prophetic words, uttered by Bahá’u’lláh during the closing decades of the nineteenth century, were all but ignored by the leaders of that day. However, in the closing decade of the twentieth century, humanity has become increasingly aware of its interdependence and is convinced at last that no individual, institution or nation can live in total isolation from the whole. The environment/development crisis has caused many to rethink their view of the world and begin to look at the [Page 10] earth as a single organic, interdependent and unified system. Consequently, the search for balance between the needs of society and the limited resources of the natural world is taking place within the larger context of the search for balance, peace, and harmony within society itself.

The intimate link between the unity of the human race and equality of the sexes is explained in the Bahá’í Writings: “. . . woman must be given the privilege of equal education with man and full right to his prerogatives. That is to say, there must be no difference in the education of male and female in order that womankind may develop equal capacity and importance with man in the social and economic equation. Then the world will attain unity and harmony. In past ages humanity has been defective and inefficient because it has been incomplete. War and its ravages have blighted the world; the education of woman will be a mighty step toward its abolition and ending, for she will use her whole influence against war. Woman rears the child and educates the youth to maturity. She will refuse to give her sons for sacrifice upon the field of battle. In truth, she will be the greatest factor in establishing universal peace and international arbitration. Assuredly, woman will abolish warfare among mankind.”

To date, most systems of social organization have marginalized women. Overall, modern development strategies have tended to reinforce and, at times, exacerbate conditions of inequality. To address inequality of the sexes, the United Nations launched the land-mark “United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace (1975-85).” As a result of research undertaken during the Decade, the vital contributions of women to the social and economic life of their nations became more visible. The new research also highlighted the unnecessary burdens borne by women and the obstacles preventing their full participation in society. More significantly, the Decade brought women together and provided them with unprecedented opportunities to exchange views and experiences. Women found that their shared concerns for their own future and for that of the human family enabled them to transcend national, class and racial boundaries. In addition, the Decade catalyzed the revitalization of traditional women’s organizations and the creation of new grass-roots Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) addressing specific needs of women. These NGOs have facilitated an extensive networking among women, empowering them to articulate their needs, design their own programs, and begin affecting policy making at all levels. As a result of efforts undertaken during the Decade, development planners have begun to address women’s lack of access to resources such as education, technology, and credit. United Nations agencies, national governments, and international development agencies have established divisions to address the needs and concerns of women.

These are significant achievements which must be greatly strengthened and expanded. Despite some progress, however, women remain on the fringes of policy making, and the systems which have traditionally oppressed them [Page 11] remain largely intact. These systems adhere to the pattern of domination that has characterized society for thousands of years: men have dominated women; one racial or ethnic group has dominated another; and nation has dominated nation. Notwithstanding humanity’s reluctance to change, “the balance is already shifting”; according to the Bahá’í Writings, “force is losing its dominance, and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine and more permeated with the feminine ideals, or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will be more evenly balanced.”

While women must develop their capacities and step forward to play an active role in solving the world’s problems, the impact of their actions will be limited without the full cooperation of men. Women working together in unity and harmony have already achieved a great deal Within the spheres of influence open to them. Now women must come together with men as equal partners. When men lend their full support to this process, welcoming women into all fields of human endeavor, valuing their contributions, and encouraging their participation, men and women together will help create the moral and psychological climate in which peace can emerge and an environmentally sustainable civilization can advance and flourish.

The transformation required for true equality will undoubtedly be difficult for both men and women because both must re-evaluate what is familiar, what is routine. Blame must be relinquished because no individual can be faulted for having been shaped by historical, sociological forces. Guilt must be shed in favor of responsibility for growth. In the face of the profound challenges facing humanity, all are accountable for recognizing that the old model no longer works, and all will be answerable to future generations for their stewardship of human civilization and its relationship to the earth.

Change, however, is an evolutionary process requiring patience with one’s self and others, loving education and the passage of time. The transition will be eased when men realize that they will be unable to achieve their full potential as long as women are prevented from attaining theirs. Indeed, when men actively promote the principle of equality, women will no longer have to struggle for their rights. Gradually, both women and men will discard long-held unhealthy attitudes and progressively incorporate into their lives the values conducive to true unity.

In the opinion of the Bahá’í International Community, the emerging world civilization will be sustained by a common commitment to a new set of values, a shared understanding of the balance between rights and responsibilities, and the willingness on the part of each to serve the best interests of humanity as a whole. For Bahá’ís, the commitment to the emancipation of women is not a recent development nor is equality of the sexes a vague ideal. It is our conviction that the unification of the human race depends on the establishment of the equality of men and women. Humanity, the Bahá’í Writings [Page 12] explain, having passed through the stages of infancy, childhood and turbulent adolescence, is now approaching maturity, a stage that will witness “the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world—a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life.”

Equality between Men and Women

A LETTER SENT BY THE NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF AUSTRALIA TO THE AUSTRALIAN BAHÁ’Í COMMUNITY, AUGUST 1988

Reprinted from Bahá’í Bulletin, p. 3, August 1988, by permission of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia.

To the Bahá’ís of Australia
Dearly loved friends:

“WE MAKE mention of the handmaidens of God at this time and announce unto them the glad-tidings of the tokens of the mercy and compassion of God and His consideration for them, glorified be He, and We supplicate Him for all His assistance to perform such deeds as are the cause of the exaltation of His Word.”

Bahá’u’lláh, over a century ago, for the first time in the history of revealed religion spoke to the women of the world with such love and compassion. He acknowledged their suffering and proclaimed the equality of men and women as one of the fundamental principles of His Revelation.

It is the National Spiritual Assembly’s view that a present task of the Australian Bahá’í community is to focus its attention on the establishment of equality. We are asking each individual, each family, each Institution and all Bahá’í communities to bring equality to a state of functioning reality. This task is part of a developmental process which will require courage, compassion, patience and wisdom.

Women throughout the history of humankind have suffered great injustice, mental and physical cruelty and aggression. They have been born into a world that reflected attitudes and practices which were formed in a society where men dominated women. For centuries women have struggled to attain an equal status with men, which Bahá’í teachings establish as their spiritual, moral and legal right. Today the equality between men and women has not [Page 13] been fully established—outside the Bahá’í community, nor within it.

The Bahá’í teachings on equality are fully announced and clear. Bahá’u’lláh has ushered in a new age calling for the emancipation of women both in thought and practice. The Bahá’í Writings expound upon the station and rights of women in order that they may equally participate in the affairs of the world. Indeed the Writings tell us that humanity has suffered because women have not been given the opportunity to participate in a wide range of human activities.

Bahá’í men have been called upon to assist, encourage and support women as they achieve education excellence and work towards equality. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks to men and says: “. . . As long as women are prevented from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable to achieve the greatness which might be theirs . . .”

At the same time Bahá’í women must shoulder the responsibility for their own development and accept assistance offered to them by men. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says: “it is likewise true that woman must prove her capacity and aptitude, must show forth the evidences of equality.”

In this new joint venture towards equality a spirit of loving co-operation and unity is the key aspect of many of the processes which will take place in the home, in schools, in the workplace and in society at large.

Each person on this earth is born into a culture and there is no culture in the world which can claim to have achieved a full state of equality. As a result, each of us displays attitudes and behaviour which are contrary to the spirit of equality. Often prejudices which we have towards women or men have become part of our daily habit or are central to our conviction. We need to explore our attitudes and behaviour which conflict with the concept of equality and consciously and deliberately seek to change these deeply embedded aspects of ourselves.

The National Spiritual Assembly has embarked on a major initiative to develop a comprehensive programme to advance the cause of women. During July, a National Bahá’í Women’s Committee was appointed whose overall purpose is to “broaden the vision of the Bahá’í community and assist its women to realise and fulfill the high aspirations held for them in the Bahá’í Writings.” It is our dearest hope that the Bahá’ís of Australia will lend their full support and encouragement to the activities of this Committee.

Friends, when Bahá’u’lláh proclaimed His Revelation we entered into an era which would characterise love, knowledge, co-operation, unity, equality and peace. The era of dominance and aggression came to an end. This new era will only be realised when women equally participate in the whole spectrum of human affairs and men support them in their endeavours.

[Page 14] The National Spiritual Assembly calls upon the Bahá’ís of Australia to make equality an established practice. We cannot allow deep-rooted prejudices about women to shape our behaviour; we cannot allow men or women to continue the slighting jokes, innuendoes and attitudes which reflect inequality; we cannot listen to and value the thoughts of men more than women; we cannot continue to allow women to be the sole or frequent providers of food and child care at Bahá’í functions; we cannot continue to give men the more prominent positions at Bahá’í functions; we cannot value our sons’ education more than our daughters’; we cannot downgrade the position of motherhood; we cannot prevent women from achieving professional and scholarly progress. If we continue to do these things then we have broken our promise to Bahá’u’lláh—that is, to safeguard, uphold, promote and practice the equality between men and women, a teaching which is deeply connected to the establishment of peace.

The National Spiritual Assembly appeals specially to Bahá’í men. Unfortunately, despite years of association, we may not realise what a spouse or fellow Assembly member is feeling. Many women feel themselves cast in a role in which they are not listened to or respected as equals, in which their hopes to develop particular talents are crushed or a desire for service through activities outside the family is thwarted by a lack of understanding and support. In this process ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has commented explicitly on the role of men:

It is my hope that women of the East, as well as their Western sisters, will progress rapidly until humanity shall reach perfection.

God’s Bounty is for all and gives power for all progress. When men own the equality of women there will be no need for them to struggle for their rights!”

The National Spiritual Assembly particularly asks Bahá’í men as family members, as members of Spiritual Assemblies and the Bahá’í community to make sincere efforts to foster equality.

It is our cherished desire that the Bahá’í community of Australia will become a model of equality which we can in turn offer the world. In this new model men and women will live and work together as equals; they will learn from each other; develop their unique qualities as human beings and reflect and offer their richly endowed potentialities as gifts to this new spiritual civilisation.

Our prayers and thoughts are with each and every one of you as you work towards the realisation of the equality between men and women.

With loving Bahá’í greetings,
NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY

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Late One Night on a Car Trip to N.Y.

At times,

the universe stays with us;

those things of substance, the stars,

pinned to the outside of our windows

like an Edward Weston photograph

and as we travel

our world travels in connected shadow.

Should we find it strange

moving through space

intact, the hum of an engine beneath us

some things staying constant

while others, the road,

trees, scenery,

an orienting point for someone else?

And is it

that much harder to accept

our souls,

escaping body, expanding beyond

the thin layer of time,

the parameters of what we think we are,

existing without echo as in a dream?

—Marlaina B. Tanny

Copyright © 1994 by Marlaina B. Tanny

[Page 16]

[Page 17]

Women in the American Bahá’í
Community, 1900-1912

BY ROBERT H. STOCKMAN

Copyright © 1994 by Robert H. Stockman

The numbered footnotes are at the end of the article.

THE YEARS 1900 through 1912 saw an active debate among American Bahá’ís about the roles that women could play in the Bahá’í community. Initially women were included in the memberships of local Bahá’í governing bodies, the forerunners of modern local spiritual assemblies; but by 1904 women had been excluded from most such bodies and had created their own institutions, which were dedicated to teaching the Bahá’í Faith to others and helping the impoverished, ill, and uneducated. By 1912 women were again included on local Bahá’í governing bodies, and the institutions they had created disappeared.

Study of the changing role of early American Bahá’í women is limited by scanty archival sources. Minutes of Bahá’í women’s organizations either were not kept or have been lost, and few letters have survived. While local Bahá’í governing bodies often used printed stationery, no stationery belonging to any Bahá’í women’s institutions existing between 1900 and 1912 has survived, suggesting that the women’s institutions were organized less formally. Sources of information on American Bahá’í women’s activities outside the Chicago area are poor. The New York Bahá’í records for the years before 1912 have not been found. The Bahá’ís of Kenosha and Racine in Wisconsin kept fairly limited archives, and most of the personal papers in these archives belonged to men. Consequently most of the story one can tell is that of the Chicago Bahá’í women.

Even the story of Chicago Bahá’í women, however, is poorly documented. Corinne True, the leading Chicago Bahá’í woman from 1900 through 1912, left personal papers, but they are not yet available to researchers. The only other Chicago Bahá’í woman to leave extensive correspondence, Louise Waite, was not centrally involved in women’s activities. Thus the main source of information on the activities of the Chicago Bahá’í women is the records of the Chicago House of Spirituality, the all-male governing body of the Chicago Bahá’ís. Its minutes record meetings with the women’s Assembly of Teaching (the Chicago Bahá’í women’s organization), and its correspondence includes letters from the Assembly of Teaching. The other, not particularly sympathetic, source of information is the correspondence of Thornton Chase, one of the first Chicago Bahá’ís and its most active writer. Chase wrote to Bahá’í women in Chicago and elsewhere, often reporting women’s news, and to Bahá’í men, to whom he occasionally complained about women’s activities. His letters are filled with significant details, including information about how many persons attended various meetings and about the attitudes and positions of members [Page 18] of the community.

A study of American Bahá’í women’s activities from 1900 through 1912 must begin by considering American Bahá’í attitudes at that time toward the “proper place” of women. American Bahá’í women certainly were not of one mind about their role in the Bahá’í community, nor were their attitudes as enlightened as they are today. Cultural assumptions in the first decade of the twentieth century were radically different from those reigning in this, the last. Contemporary Americans have a history of at least three generations of women voting in local, state, and national elections, but in 1900 the American woman’s right to vote was still two decades away.

The one extensive work by an American Bahá’í woman about the role of women in the Bahá’í Faith dates from about 1909. Ida Brush, a prominent and active Chicago Bahá’í, wrote a paper that she delivered at the Chicago Bahá’í community’s Sunday devotional service. By quoting and interpreting tablets (letters) by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, son of Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, and its head at the time, she argued that the Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unique strengths of both sexes. She noted that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá referred to the Chicago women’s Assembly of Teaching using “delicate” terms such as “leaves, roses of the Rose Garden, fragrances and pearls,” while only once had He used such words in connection with the Chicago men’s House of Spirituality. Brush also stated that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had said that the women “should not interfere with affairs which have regard to the Board of Consultation” because “then pure spirituality would cease” [italics hers]. She offered her interpretation of this guidance:

We can liken this to the household—it is not home without the combined qualities of the husband and wife. The husband by his efforts provides the way and means for the home, the wife makes the home a haven of comfort and rest. The wife goes to the husband for counsel and advice and the husband to the wife for love and sympathy.

Brush likened the relationship between the House of Spirituality and the Assembly of Teaching to the Victorian ideal of the roles of husband and wife. Scholars in the field of women’s studies often use the term “virtuous womanhood” to describe the idealized role of women that was common in America from about the 1860s to 1910. This ideal defined women as loving exemplars and promoters of Christian virtues, educators of a virtuous next generation, and perfect homemakers. The role was not altogether a passive one— the sphere of “virtuous” activities of American women steadily expanded throughout the nineteenth century and came to include women’s involvement in voluntary associations aimed at improving society and in professions that educated and nurtured, such as teaching and nursing. Nevertheless, the ideal of virtuous womanhood implied the exclusion of women from politics, voting, business, and other male-dominated activities that seemed incompatible with the emotional nature, pure idealism, and moral rectitude that were assumed to dominate woman’s character.

Later in her paper Brush mentioned that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had stressed that a woman, especially, should be educated—“not as a means to earn her living,” she stated, but in order to be a better mother. Brush’s interpretation of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement—which ignored Bahá’u’lláh’s statement that everyone, including women, should engage in an occupation—followed assumptions current in her society, where women usually worked only if unmarried or impoverished and where the ideal of “educated motherhood” was finding increasing popularity. This ideal, which began to develop in the late nineteenth century and became the dominant view of the female role until the 1920s, supported the education of women but limited the purpose [Page 19] of that education to fostering their educative and nurturing duties as mothers.

It is significant that Brush never used the term “equality” in her discussion of the roles of women and men. Yet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had written several tablets to American Bahá’í women who were friends of Brush, and in at least one of them He had said that women were equal to men. That Brush did not quote these tablets suggests that she had not internalized or understood fully their contents. Ida Brush is an example of an American Bahá’í woman who expressed many of the assumptions about womanhood that were current in her society and viewed the relationship between the sexes as basically unequal.

Between 1908 and 1910 three other American Bahá’í’ women wrote essays about the Bahá’í social teachings—Jean Masson, a Chicago journalist; Ethel J. Rosenberg, an early London Bahá’í; and Helen Stuart Campbell, a social scientist. All three stated that the equality of women and men was a central Bahá’í teaching. The actions of other American Bahá’í women and the questions they asked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá also demonstrate a commitment to the equality of the sexes in the Bahá’í community. Thus Brush’s perspective was not the only one, although it probably reflected a view that was common when the Bahá’í Faith was brought to the United States in the late nineteenth century.

1894-1901

IBRAHIM GEORGE KHEIRALLA, who brought the Bahá’í Faith to North America between the years 1894 and 1899, said nothing about the Bahá’í teachings on the role of women. The demography of the early American Bahá’í community, however, guaranteed that women would play a major role in the life of the community: 64 percent of the converts from 1894 to 1899 were women, and in some communities, such as Cincinnati and New York, the percentage was almost three-fourths. Furthermore, judging from their interests in healing, diet, the occult, and eastern religion, the people who became Bahá’ís at that time were often unconventional. Hence the community is likely to have included dissenters from the ideals of virtuous womanhood and educated motherhood. This would especially be true in communities where many women became Bahá’ís while their husbands did not (again, Cincinnati and New York provide examples); their act of affiliation with a religion different from their husbands’ in itself implies independence.

One way in which women were active in their communities was by occupying positions of leadership. The nineteenth-century American Bahá’í communities chose officers rather than electing consultative bodies, and women were often selected for important posts. In Cincinnati the treasurer was Sarah C. Crocker, a woman who ran her own business. In Hudson County, New Jersey, the community’s secretary was Isabella Brittingham, an extremely active Bahá’í. She had no children, did not have to earn a living, and thus had much time to devote to the Bahá’í Faith. In Kenosha, Wisconsin—where men actually outnumbered women slightly in the Bahá’í community (54 percent to 46 percent) and most conversions involved entire family units—the vice president was Minnie Lane, the wife of the community’s president, Byron Lane; the second vice president was her mother, Charlotte Rosenhauer, a widow; the secretary was Mabel Rogers, an unmarried woman; and one of the community’s “teachers” was a widow, Louisa Davy. Women served as four of the Kenosha Bahá’í community’s eight or nine officers. In Chicago, New York, and Racine, Wisconsin, the names of the community officers are unknown, but it is likely that Maude Lamson, Kheiralla’s secretary, served as secretary of the Chicago Bahá’í community.

In 1900 the Bahá’ís in Chicago, Kenosha, Racine, and New York City first elected [Page 20] consultative bodies. Women voted in the elections but were not always considered eligible to serve. The Kenosha “House of Justice” included all of the active Bahá’ís—twenty-four persons in all, nine of them women. While the ten members of the Chicago “Board of Council” elected in March 1900 were all men, the nineteen-member board that replaced it a few months later included women. But the inclusion of women in consultative bodies proved temporary. All-male governing bodies were organized in Racine in mid 1900, in New York in December 1900, in Chicago in May 1901, and in Kenosha in 1904, thereby diminishing administrative opportunities for women. In fact, in Kenosha the community secretary and treasurer—both women—resigned their posts in order to allow the Kenosha “Temporary Men’s Board” to assume governance of the Kenosha Bahá’í community.

The spread of information about the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the chief repository of Bahá’u’lláh’s laws and ordinances, by visiting Persian Bahá’í teachers (who were men) may have sparked the subsequent decision not to elect women to the consultative bodies. In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá’u’lláh refers to the members of the House of Justice as rajál, males. American Bahá’í’s learned of this fact when Persian Bahá’í teachers brought copies of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas to America with them in 1900 and 1901 and conducted study classes on the book. The early American Bahá’ís considered their governing bodies to be Houses of Justice, or at least their forerunners, and were familiar with the passages in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas that refer to them. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had not yet issued a ruling that limited the restriction on female membership only to the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing and legislative body of the Bahá’í Faith.

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ISABELLA BRITTINGHAM	MINNIE LANE	IDA BRUSH
secretary of the Hudson County, New Jersey, Bahá’ís	vice president of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, Bahá’ís and later a member of the Chicago women’s Assembly of Teaching	prominent Chicago Bahá’í and author of a paper on the relationship of women and men

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Chicago, 1901-03

WHEN in May 1901 the Chicago Bahá’ís replaced their nineteen-member board of men and women with a “House of Justice” consisting of ten men, it was suggested that the women organize their own governing board. At the community celebration of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s birthday on 23 May 1901, both Corinne True and Ella Nash spoke in favor of such a body, and it “immediately . . . sprang into existence.” It was probably the first Bahá’í [Page 21] women’s organization in the world. The women named it “the Women’s Auxiliary Board,” “auxiliary” indicating the women’s recognition of the primacy of the Chicago House of Justice. A document dated November 1901 indicates that the Board had fourteen members.

The Women’s Auxiliary Board held its first business meeting on 29 May 1901, at which time the members chose officers and resolved to write the women in all the Bahá’í communities in the United States, urging them to organize. A circular letter noted that “We appointed every nineteenth (19th) day for the General Meeting of the Beloved Maid Servants of God in Chicago when we consult about the teachings and our service.” Corinne True, corresponding secretary of the Auxiliary Board, also wrote to the Chicago House of Justice to request a joint meeting to “confer upon matters pertinent to both parties.” The meeting took place on 18 June and resulted in mutual pledges to work together in harmony.

In September 1901 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed a tablet to the women’s governing body, calling it “The Assembly of Teaching” and stressing the importance of women’s efforts to teach the Bahá’í Faith:

O maid-servants of the Merciful! Know that, verily, this day is the day of teaching, this day is the day of diffusing the fragrances of God, being severed from aught else save God, attracted to the Word of God, and clinging to the Covenant of God. There is no work greater than this. Be ye entirely spiritual . . . and confine your mentions, thoughts and occupations to spreading the fragrances of God. . . .

In the tablet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá also revealed a prayer for the women to read at the opening of their meetings.

Inspired by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the women changed the name of their group to the “Assembly of Teaching.” Now they had a specific task: to teach the Faith. By dropping the term “Auxiliary” from the group’s title they removed the implication that the body was subordinate to the House of Justice. Perhaps unconsciously the women had changed their role in the Chicago community by becoming less passive and more independent of the Chicago House of Justice.

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CORINNE TRUE
the leading Chicago Bahá’í
woman from 1900 through 1912

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In a tablet to Mírzá Asadu’lláh, a Persian Bahá’í teacher residing in Chicago, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained how the women’s and men’s governing bodies should be organized:

As to the Assembly of Teaching, [it] should not interfere with the affairs which have regard to the Board of Consultation [House of Justice], because confusion of thought conduces to division and causes disturbance to the mind, and then pure spirituality would cease. But if all mentions are turned into one mention, and all thoughts concentrated in one point, then man will find (a higher) spirit, and [Page 22] witness (a higher) confirmation. . . .

The Assembly of Teaching is in this day of the first importance. . . .

Concerning organizing Houses of Justice of men and Assemblies of Teaching of maid-servants of God, the more endeavor is made, the more agreeable it will be. It is very useful.

Thus ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged the Bahá’ís to continue their efforts to organize. He may not have wanted separate organizations for men and women, but He chose to interfere in the Chicago Bahá’í community’s affairs as little as possible. He also chose not to tell the Chicago Bahá’ís to change the name of their House of Justice, even though He had written to an American Bahá’í around March 1901, telling her that “it is not the time of organizing House of Justice [sic], & the believers should have a house or board of counsel or advice to manage the affairs of the believers.”

A joint meeting of the House of Justice and the Assembly of Teaching on 26 January 1902 was harmonious, but it seems to have marked the beginning of the movement of the two consultative bodies in separate directions. The Assembly was greatly concerned about two issues. The first was the need to encourage inactive Bahá’ís to become active members of the community again, for only about one hundred of the over seven hundred individuals listed as Chicago Bahá’ís in 1899—the last time a community membership list had been compiled—attended Bahá’í events. The second issue concerned teaching the Bahá’í Faith, for teaching activity had lagged, and few inquirers were coming to meetings.

The Assembly proposed two solutions. First, it wanted to move Bahá’í activities away from the “House of Abdul-Baha,” a house located at 475 West Monroe Street, west of downtown Chicago, that was rented to house the Persian teachers and serve as a Bahá’í center. The Assembly favored a downtown location, thinking that inquirers and inactive believers could reach a more central place more conveniently. Second, the Assembly proposed establishing a small soup kitchen in a rented space downtown to provide inexpensive lunches; if the food was donated, the lunches could be provided for fifteen cents each. Such a public service would be similar to the services that the women’s auxiliaries of many Chicago churches provided. It would also bring prestige to the Faith and provide a means for reactivating the inactive Bahá’ís.

The House of Justice did not agree with the proposals, for it was nearly penniless and could not pay the rent on the “House of Abdul-Baha,” which it leased, let alone on a hall in downtown Chicago. Consultation between the men and women led to the adoption of the more general goal of organizing a teaching conference at which specific ideas about how to teach the Bahá’í Faith in Chicago would be discussed. This conference was held on 23 February 1902 and is the first recorded Bahá’í teaching conference in North America.

Shortly after the House of Justice met in January 1902 with the Assembly of Teaching, a controversy over the legitimacy of the House of Justice developed. One can infer from the House of Justice minutes that someone questioned when the House should be reelected and perhaps criticized the exclusion of women from its ranks. The House appointed a committee to reexamine the statements in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas on which the body was organized. On 9 February 1902 the committee reported that

We have examined the Kitab el Akdas and can find nothing therein which would indicate as to the time when such a body should be organized nor is their [sic] any reference made as regards governmental affairs and in my opinion nothing has been done which could be construed as conflicting with the laws of the Manifestation.

[Page 23] As a result the House moved

that we stand by Mirza Assad Ullah in the establishment of this House of Justice in accordance with the instructions of the Master [‘Abdu’l-Bahá] and that we ignore all attacks made against the same. . . .

Motion made & seconded that secretary be instructed to write Ladies Auxiliary Board setting forth our action in regard to statements made against this House of Justice.

The decision to write to the Assembly of Teaching (referred to by its original name) strongly implies that the questions about the House’s membership came from the women’s group or one of its members. The questions also prompted Corinne True to write to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on 25 February 1902, saying

There has existed a difference of opinion in our Assembly [community] as to how it should be governed. . . . Many in our Assembly feel that the Governing Board in Chicago should be a mixed Board of both men & women. Women in America stand so conspicuously for all that is highest & best in every department and for that reason it is contended the affairs should be in the hands of both sexes.

True’s argument was based on the claim that women stand for “all that is highest & best,” a claim that resembles Sheila Rothman’s description in Woman’s Proper Place of the ideal of virtuous womanhood. Rothman notes that it was common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for women to use the assumptions of virtuous womanhood to argue that, because of woman’s virtues, she should become involved in every sphere of human endeavor, thereby purifying those spheres. Like Brush, True seems to have shared some common assumptions about women, but clearly she was calling for recognition of equality of the sexes in Bahá’í administration.

On 2 March 1902 the House of Justice also decided to write ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about the length of the members’ term of service. But the debate over the nature of the membership of the House of Justice did not distract the men or the women from the proposal that a hall should be rented downtown. On 16 March 1902 the Assembly of Teaching wrote to the House of Justice requesting that all the Bahá’ís be notified of a business meeting after one of the Sunday meetings “so that the Voice of the People be ascertained in selecting a location for the Meetings for the next year.” True composed the letter. The request was in line with the informal bylaws of the Chicago Bahá’ís, which stated that a two-thirds vote of the community could overturn a decision of the House of Justice.

The lease on the “House of Abdul-Baha” on Monroe Street would expire at the end of April. After deliberation, the House of Justice decided not to renew the lease because it was in considerable debt, for the Chicago Bahá’ís were not contributing enough to pay the rent. The House chose a committee of five of its members, chaired by Charles Ioas, to look into alternatives. The committee agreed with the Assembly of Teaching that a downtown location would be best, but most members thought that the House could not afford such a facility.

On 11 April the Assembly sent a petition to the House, signed by twenty-one members, repeating their request for a general meeting of the community. Among the signators were Fannie Lesch and Minnie Lane, wives of members of the House of Justice, as well as Minnie’s mother, Charlotte Rosenhauer. After much discussion, the House decided not to finance a hall because its debt was too great. The House did agree to hold a meeting to ascertain the community’s wishes, but if the community wanted a downtown meeting place, it would have to support it financially.

The House’s decision was far from unanimous. Many members may have felt that the House, as the head of the community, had [Page 24] shirked its responsibility. For the first time the membership of the House was split over an important decision. In late April 1902 Charles Greenleaf, a prominent member of the House, ceased to attend its meetings and did not resume regular attendance until 1905.

The women were not in unanimous agreement about the proposed downtown meeting place either. Frances Roe, who was “nominally the leader” of the Assembly of Teaching, was uncertain about the idea. Corinne True, secretary of the Assembly, was one of the leading promoters of the hall. Her intelligence and natural leadership ability made her a strong force in the discussions.

Even though the Assembly requested a community meeting and a two-thirds vote, which very likely would have overturned the House’s decision, there is no evidence that such a meeting was ever held, perhaps because the women constituted two-thirds of the active Chicago Bahá’ís. Independent of the House of Justice, the Assembly decided to rent a hall and on 4 May 1902 began holding Sunday meetings downtown in a room rented in the Masonic Temple. The members of the House were invited to the first meeting but chose not to attend.

The split of active Chicago Bahá’ís into two opposing groups was a severe blow for the House of Justice. Simultaneously another blow struck it as well. On 3 May 1902 Mírzá Asadu’lláh received a tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá saying that “We named the assemblies of teaching in Chicago ‘the spiritual assemblies.’ You should organize spiritual assemblies in every place.” The term “assemblies of teaching” seems to refer to both the House of Justice and the women’s Assembly of Teaching, which appear in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s tablet to be equals. Having never heard the term before, no one knew what “spiritual assemblies” were. Later in the tablet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá changed the name of the Chicago governing body to the “House of Spirituality or Spiritual House.” No explanation for the change of name was offered, leading many to speculate that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had found the House of Justice unworthy of its lofty title. The House officially changed its name to the House of Spirituality on 10 May 1902 and, probably a few weeks later, wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to ask why He had made the change.

In June, Byron Lane and Charles Ioas, members of the House who supported the Assembly’s downtown meetings, stopped attending the deliberations of the House. The remaining members continued to attend regularly and discussed what they could do to spread the Bahá’í Faith in Chicago. They resolved to pray individually every night at 9:00 P.M. for the guidance of the House of Spirituality. The House held community meetings on Wednesday and Friday evenings in the homes of various members, but only eight to twelve people usually attended. Most who came were members of the House, but not all. Gertrude Buikema was one of its regulars, as was Mrs. Spence, who had sublet part of the “House of Abdul-Baha.” Thus not all the support for the House of Spirituality came from men, nor did all the support for the downtown meetings come from women. The House sent notices to the rest of the community asking them to pray individually for a few moments at 8:30 P.M. on Friday nights so that the community would be united in spirit.

The House did not offer any financial support for the downtown meetings—it had none to offer—but it did not oppose them. In August the downtown meetings ended. The Assembly of Teaching had learned the same lesson that the House of Spirituality had learned in the spring when it rented the “House of Abdul-Baha”: that good ideas and enthusiasm must be accompanied by planning and resources to be successful. In September the Assembly of Teaching held a “nineteen days meeting” to discuss the resumption of weekly meetings and invited the men to come. Most attended.

[Page 25] On 9 September the House of Spirituality received three long tablets from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The first one explained why the name of the House had been changed. Critics of the House were surprised to learn that its conduct had not been the cause:

The signature of that meeting should be the Spiritual Gathering (House of Spirituality) and the wisdom therein is that hereafter the government should not infer from the term “House of Justice” that a court is signified, that it is connected with political affairs, or that at any time it will interfere with governmental affairs.

. . . The intention was to make known that by the term Spiritual Gathering (House of Spirituality), that Gathering has not the least connection with material matters, and that its whole aim and consultation is confined to matters connected with spiritual affairs. This was also instructed (performed) in all Persia.

Thus protection of the Bahá’ís, especially in Iran, against government suspicions was the reason for the change of name.

The second tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was filled with words of praise for the House of Spirituality. In the third tablet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answered the House of Spirituality’s question about its membership by saying that it should be elected every five years according to the rules of election “customary” in the United States. He said nothing about whether women could be members.

The three tablets ended the questioning of the legitimacy of the House of Spirituality. Many members returned to its sessions. Many of the individuals involved in the controversy received personal tablets from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as well. Frances Roe’s tablet encouraged further effort by the women in organizing other women’s groups. The tablet to True was a response to her February letter:

O maid-servant of God! Know thou that in the sight of God, the conduct of women is the same as that of men. All are the creatures of God and He has created them after His form and likeness; . . . From the spiritual point of view, therefore, there is no difference between women and men. . . .

The House of Justice, however, according to the positive commandments of the Doctrine of God, has been specialized to the men, for a (specific) reason or exercise of wisdom on the part of God, and this reason will presently appear, even as the sun at midday.

While the tablet was sent in response to True’s letter, it is not clear whether the reply was designed to answer her question about the Chicago Bahá’í community. Possibly ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s translator had given Him a poor translation or summary of her request. True did not use the term “House of Justice” in her letter, and she asked her question in such a way that it could easily be construed as a general question about the service of women on Bahá’í governing bodies.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s reply also contained ambiguities. The tablet does not mention the situation in Chicago, nor does its reference to “the House of Justice” clearly refer to the Chicago House of Justice. Indeed, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá changed the name of the Chicago governing body to “House of Spirituality” about the same time as He wrote the tablet to True. Moreover, He had been telling Bahá’ís for over a year not to use the term “House of Justice.” Hence it is possible the term “House of Justice” was not meant to refer to the Chicago body. Rather, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá may have been referring only to the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing and legislative body of the Bahá’í Faith (which had not yet been established), even though True had not asked about it. The phrase “the House of Justice” may also refer to the institution of Houses of Justice, whether at the local, national, or international levels; thus the tablet may have meant to exclude women from membership on local and national houses [Page 26] of justice, as well as from the Universal House of Justice.

In 1909 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote another tablet to Corinne True making it clear that women were excluded only from membership on the Universal House of Justice. This later tablet must be considered when interpreting the 1902 tablet. The 1909 tablet may have been meant to correct a misunderstanding that the 1902 tablet referred to all levels of Houses of Justice, or, possibly, it was meant to make specific a Bahá’í teaching that in 1902 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had intentionally left vague. But regardless of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s intent, all Chicago Bahá’ís—men and women—understood the 1902 tablet to exclude women from membership on the Chicago Bahá’í governing body.

Thornton Chase, a prominent member of the House of Spirituality, received a tablet in reply to a letter he had written to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in mid-May 1902. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed a question Chase had raised about the activities of the women, explaining that

If, in the letters to the maid-servants of the Merciful, there hath been written . . . encouragement . . . the purport is that some women in this wonderful age have surpassed some men, and not that all women have surpassed all men. The members of the House of Spirituality must give unlimited encouragement to women. In this age, both men and women are in the shadow of the Word of God. Whosoever endeavors the most will attain the greatest share, be it of men or of women. . . .

‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote to all the parties in such a way as to foster their collaboration and reconciliation. The tablets to Corinne True and Frances Roe inspired the Assembly of Teaching to write to the House of Spirituality expressing a desire to cooperate. The House replied in a similar vein.

In early November 1902 the House of Spirituality wrote to the Assembly of Teaching, requesting that it provide the refreshments and decorate the hall for the annual celebration of the “Feast of the Master” (now called the Day of the Covenant.) The House planned to rent a facility in downtown Chicago for the event. It appointed a committee to meet with the Assembly and plan the celebration. The Assembly responded enthusiastically: “[your letter] was received with joy and a quiet responsive spirit . . . and in less time than it takes to write this letter—One hundred and fifty sandwiches— and cakes aplenty were vouched for. The coffee to be furnished by a friend of one of the good sisters . . . to be paid for from our Treasury.” The celebration was the biggest meeting held in Chicago in three years, with one hundred and fifty Bahá’ís attending.

The celebration strengthened the cooperation between the House of Spirituality and the Assembly of Teaching and demonstrated the feasibility of the two groups’ working together to establish regular meetings. On 13 December 1902 the House wrote a letter to the Assembly thanking the women for their help and appointed a committee to write a letter promising to sponsor a weekly community meeting. Finances were carefully considered, and the members of the House pledged to cover the hall rent jointly should the community not contribute enough (this was possible because they were no longer renting the “House of Abdul-Baha”). The format of the meeting was thoroughly discussed so that it would offend no one. The “Bahai Publishing Society” prepared a hymnal to provide the meetings with suitable music. Sunday services were begun on 22 February 1903 and continued every week for many years thereafter.

The Chicago Bahá’ís learned valuable lessons from the crisis of 1902. One was the necessity of cooperation between men and women not only because the women, comprising 70 percent of the community, provided the majority of the volunteers but, more important, because cooperation preserved unity. Another lesson was the importance [Page 27] of working through the local governing body. The House of Spirituality had been maligned, rejected, and even abandoned by some of its members, but it had persisted in meeting weekly and had met opposition without being unkind. The House’s actions and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s tablets of praise gradually fostered the Chicago Bahá’í community’s trust of the House’s efforts. Over the next decade, though the men and women in the community sometimes disagreed, no open breaks occurred.

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LOUISE WAITE	GERTRUDE BUIKEMA	ELIZABETH GREENLEAF
revived the Chicago women’s Assembly of Teaching in 1909	a member of the Chicago women’s Assembly of Teaching	president in 1905 of the women’s Assembly of Teaching in Chicago

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1903-12

RECORDS from the period 1903 through 1912 show that the House of Spirituality and the Assembly of Teaching in Chicago functioned in very different ways. The members of the House of Spirituality usually were businessmen and ran the House in a businesslike manner, with a concern for balanced finances, careful planning, and the maintenance of accurate and detailed records. Because of Thornton Chase’s appreciation of the Bahá’í principle of consultation, the House discussed issues and acted on them as a body.

The Assembly of Teaching, in contrast, was made up principally of homemakers; none of its members worked outside the home. Rather than focusing on organizational meetings, with minutes and correspondence, the women met to socialize, study the Faith, teach the Faith to others, and plan efforts to assist Bahá’ís who were poor, elderly, or ill.

Because of the organizational style of the Assembly of Teaching, for most years it is impossible to ascertain its membership or to determine whether it elected a board to coordinate its affairs. Records of the House of Spirituality and letters of Thornton Chase preserve the names of many of the Assembly’s officers and suggest frequent turnover in its leadership. Frances Roe served as secretary of the women’s Assembly in 1902 and 1903. The officers for 1904 are unknown. In May 1905 Elizabeth Greenleaf was elected president, and Fannie Lesch, secretary. In October 1905, however, Corinne True was secretary, and in February 1906 Aimée Jaxon was president. The terms of the previous officers should not have expired until May, suggesting that trouble had occurred among the women. Chase hinted that Jaxon dominated the Assembly and that True was not pleased [Page 28] with its management. In May 1906, when the annual election was held, Fannie Lesch was elected secretary.

The frequent turnover in the officers of the Assembly suggests a considerably greater turnover in, and correspondingly less continuity in leadership of, the Assembly when compared to the House of Spirituality, which had virtually the same officers from 1902 to 1909. This impression is reinforced by a statement Thornton Chase made about the various cliques that existed among the women:

There are about five or more cliques in Chicago, each one tending to flock by themselves. The Jaxon-True-Phillips clique (now the “Women’s Assembly”); the Ameen-Russell-Lesch-Moody (devotees); the Nash group of intellectuals; the [Isabella] B[rittingha]m followers; the Harrison-Roe spiritual perfectionists, etc., etc.

The membership of these groups may have overlapped, and there is no way of knowing whether the groups were cordial or cool to each other. But the officers in any one year seem to come from only one group, and in different years different cliques dominated the Assembly of Teaching.

In the years 1907 and 1909 the Assembly of Teaching disappears from existing archival sources, suggesting that it became inactive. On 17 November 1908 the House of Spirituality met with a women’s “Ways and Means Committee” that had been established for the purpose of building a Bahá’í House of Worship in Chicago; it appears to be the only Bahá’í women’s organization existing at the time. Most likely, Corinne True and many other active Chicago Bahá’í women focused their efforts on finding a temple site in 1907, 1908, and 1909.

In May 1909 Louise Waite revived the Assembly of Teaching. Not only did the women elect a board to govern their affairs, but they created committees for teaching the Bahá’í Faith to others, planning programs, initiating philanthropic endeavors, visiting shut-ins, helping the sick, and organizing publicity. Very few of the members of the new board had played an active part in the earlier Assembly of Teaching.

In the late summer of 1909 Corinne True received a tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that clarified the role of women on Bahá’í governing bodies:

In the Law of God, men and women are equal in all rights save in the Universal House of Justice, for the Chairman and members of the House of Justice are men according to the Text of the Book. Aside from this, in all the rest of the Associations, like the Convention for building the Mashreq’Ul-Azkar [Bahá’í temple], the Assembly of Teaching, the Spiritual Assembly, Philanthropic Association, Scientific Associations, men and women are copartners in all the rights [emphasis in original].

True shared the tablet with the House of Spirituality, which did not interpret it the same way she did. Perhaps it was not clear to the House of Spirituality that it was a Spiritual Assembly. It was also not clear that all local Bahá’í consultative bodies were equal, for they all had different names, memberships, and rules of election. Indeed, it was probably not clear to the House of Spirituality that a difference existed between local Houses of Justice and the Universal House of Justice. Moreover, since ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had once addressed them as a “House of Justice,” some members of the House of Spirituality may have thought of themselves as members of the precursor of the Universal House of Justice.

In any event, on 31 August 1909 the House of Spirituality refused to add women to its membership and refused to publish True’s tablet on the grounds that a “misunderstanding might be incurred.” The House of Spirituality also asked Ahmad Sohrab—a Persian Bahá’í living in the United States who did much of the translating of letters to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá [Page 29] and tablets from him—to check the translation of the tablet. He did so and found it accurate. Sohrab wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, requesting clarification, but it is not known whether ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied.

In 1912, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited the United States, He asked the Chicago Bahá’ís to reelect the House of Spirituality and told them that women were eligible for membership. Three of the nine persons elected were women: Ida Brush, Fannie Lesch, and Corinne True. All three had been active in the Assembly of Teaching. While True undoubtedly felt vindicated in her long struggle to give women an equal voice in Bahá’í administration, one wonders what Ida Brush—who had argued against equality—thought. The fact that she served on the Chicago House of Spirituality, however, suggests that she accepted the new role of women.

With the election of women to the House of Spirituality, the Assembly of Teaching ceased to exist. Once the women perceived themselves as having equal rights with men in the administration they no longer found the need for a separate organization. Thus the election of women to the House of Spirituality ended an era of Bahá’í women’s organizations in Chicago.

Other Parts of North America

WHILE many records exist of Bahá’í women’s activities in Chicago, records of women’s activities in other parts of North America are scarce. As early as the summer of 1901 the New York Bahá’í women were sponsoring a weekly meeting to study the Faith. Gertrude Harris, wife of Hooper Harris, was primarily responsible for the gatherings. Possibly the group was created in response to the 1901 circular letter of the Chicago Women’s Auxiliary Board, which called on American Bahá’í women to organize. It is not known when the New York Bahá’í women formed their first coordinating board. References in two documents indicate it existed in November 1902 and was reelected in March 1903. A December 1904 letter states the organization was named the “Bahai Unity League for Ladies.” In early 1905 a women’s organization was formed in Brooklyn, which had a Bahá’í community partly separate from the rest of New York City. No records of either organization have yet been found.

In 1911 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá directed that the New York Board of Counsel expand its membership from nine to twenty-seven and that it be reelected, and He specified that women should be elected. After that year women served on the board. There are no subsequent records of Bahá’í women’s organizations in New York.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Bahá’í women were actively involved in their community organization as officers until 1904, when the “Temporary Men’s Board” was formed and the community officers resigned. In 1907 the Kenosha women established an industrial school to teach sewing and other useful skills to the city’s needy, starting the first social and economic development project to be initiated by a Western Bahá’í community.

In 1911 the Kenosha Board of Consultation wrote to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asking Whether women could serve on community governing bodies, probably because the Kenosha women had asked them. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá replied, saying that “you have a spiritual Assembly of men and you can establish a spiritual Assembly of women. Both assemblies must be engaged in diffusing the fragrances of God and be occupied with the service of the Kingdom. The above is the best solution to the problem.” It is significant that the tablet was received at about the same time that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged the Bahá’ís of New York to elect women to their governing body. Perhaps He felt that in New York the men and women were ready to share responsibility on a joint body, while in Kenosha they were not.

Washington, D.C., Boston, and San Francisco had large Bahá’í communities in which [Page 30] women played active roles. The first two cities had consultative bodies. Because these bodies were not seen as being as formal or as official as the Chicago and New York bodies, they were not considered Houses of Justice, and women were elected to them from the beginning. The Washington “Working Committee” seems to have been first elected in 1907. The Boston “Executive Committee” was chosen in early 1908. The San Francisco area is not known to have had a consultative body and had virtually no active Bahá’í men. Charles Mason Remey and Thornton Chase complained in letters to each other that it was difficult for men in the San Francisco Bay area to become active Bahá’í’s because of the women’s dominance. According to Remey, the women held all Bahá’í meetings during the day, when men had to work, and as a result there were very few active Bahá’í men in the Bay area.

Conclusion

THE YEARS 1900 through 1912 saw active discussion, and sometimes disunity, over the role of women in American Bahá’í organizations. Almost from the founding of the American Bahá’í community, women provided most of its volunteer workers, and many women soon became concerned about their lack of voice in the consultative bodies that organized local communities. The women made their case for service on consultative bodies in letters to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and in local Bahá’í meetings. Both men and women conducted their discourse by using the Bahá’í writings as their starting point, and both consciously or unconsciously interpreted those writings according to the cultural norms of the day. Loyalty to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Bahá’í Faith were crucial elements in the debate, and they were elements on which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself depended when He wrote to the women and men in order to keep their discussion civil and to prevent a breakdown in relations between the two sides. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged the formation of women’s organizations as auxiliaries to the community governing bodies, thereby fostering women’s activities. In the end, however, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself authorized the service of women on Bahá’í local and national governing bodies, thereby introducing a change in the existing customs.

In ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s often-forgotten tablets to the Chicago women, contemporary Bahá’í women will find encouragement for their own service to the Bahá’í Faith. In the debate over the role of women, waged eight decades ago, one can identify many of the elements typically found in discussions in the Bahá’í community today: the constant use of statements in the Bahá’í writings by all sides; the inevitable and often unconscious interpretation of those writings based on contemporary social and cultural values; and the final endorsement or rejection of proposed changes in the Bahá’í community by the head of the Faith, which today is the Universal House of Justice. The roles of men and women in the Bahá’í community will always be subject to discussion and change. The debate in the years 1900 through 1912 contains many forms of behavior to emulate and many to avoid as the discussion continues.

[Page 31]

[Page 32]

[Page 33]

[Page 34]

The Sound of Gabriel’s Wings

The perilous night

caged in black

strings its harp melody

to horizons striped yellow

waiting for the dawn

and a beautiful touch

The lid of a music box closed

silences telling a secret

hidden in your dance

waiting for a touch

to open, the night to end

to finally gaze on some beauty

—Sheila Banani

Copyright © 1994 by Sheila Banani

[Page 35]

[Page 36]

A Desert Change

There’s nothing left now

but the chilling fog

invading all my senses

I breathe in the clinging

cloud, long for the land

where cacti sloop their fill

of summer rain, and jack

rabbits and lizards search

in a frenzy for their supper.

I miss the brilliance

of a brief flowering—

the delicate beauty

of a savage state—

so unlike the arrogant

outpouring of greeness

and cement. I have survived

a desert change, and cannot

go back to the sea. I am

an ant-like alien, and like

the lizard must find

my way carefully between

two blades of grass. Yet

change must come

survival depends on belonging

to the shrieks of gulls

the barks of lions

over heaving water—

Once again adrenalin flows

the heart leaps, ears listen

to the magnitude of sound

finally drumming out

the delicacy of a cactus flower

opening quickly in the early

Spring—to live for one brief

moment in total victory.

—Joan Imig Taylor

Copyright © 1994 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

[Page 37]

1

In a far-away land alone in my thoughts I live

No one to share the mullings of my mind

Or fresh avenue suggest

Though I look outwardly same

Inwardly an emaciated form

Dear God, if there be no one for me to share

Thy great gift of speech

Let my soul always to Thee in rapture speak

2

The streams will run

The fields will flower

We live, we labor

We love, we cradle

At all times somewhere

Lovers laugh into each other’s eyes

And in our children’s

We see the meaning of our lives

O God, in all Thy world

Thou hast made a place for each

Then before my days on themselves fold back

Let me in my life fulfill

What Thou desirest

July 1, 1989
—Diana Malouf

Copyright © 1994 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

[Page 38]

I Can Imagine the Earth

in the silence before cars,

phones, planes, trains,

typewriters, lawnmowers and tractors,

computers, radios,

TVs,

when all machines

lay quietly in the mind of man,

and the sound I hear

is the laughter of children.

—Sheila Banani

Copyright © 1994 by Sheila Banani

Physics in the Family

Your brightening voice, higher on the phone,

tells me you won’t be coming

as planned, my plan, not yours.

And how calmly I respond, all ease,

trying not to let you hear

the catch and pause in my breathing,

like last night when I heard

the physicist’s explanation about matter,

that bodies aren’t really solid,

we’re more space,

and suddenly I felt empty.

—Sheila Banani

Copyright © 1994 by Sheila Banani

[Page 39]

Transcending a Prison

Once my soul was wed

To the remembrance of the Beloved,

Once my heart reflected

The light of the Eternal Sun,

A tender love was born,

A cherished inner meaning,

Unveiled to awe the servant

Of the Beloved One.

Now somatic barriers

Can never stand between us.

Beat on, my heart!

Beat on till death us fuse.

My soul, like cagéd bird

Beats its wings against its gaol.

Hush, don’t struggle!

Let the Beloved deliver you.

Transcendence involves trust.

Submission is the key.

Bow before His Holy Word.

Partake of His Melodies.

Then you’ll soar above the corporeal,

And enjoy a mystical paradox.

A captive in the dust,

Yet at His Throne, a devotee!

—Phyllis K. Peterson

Copyright © 1990 by Phyllis K. Peterson

[Page 40]

[Page 41]

African American Women in the
Bahá’í Faith, 1899-1919

BY GWENDOLYN ETTER-LEWIS

Copyright © 1994 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. The author is grateful to Diane Taherzadeh, Robert Stockman, and the Spiritual Assemblies of the Bahá’ís of Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco for their assistance and support.

The numbered footnotes are at the end of the article.

THE ROLE of African American women in the early days of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States and Canada is neither well documented nor widely known. However, a close examination of historical sources and primary documents suggests that African American women were active in the Bahá’í Faith only six years after its introduction to North America. Moreover, they played a significant part in developing and expanding the Bahá’í Faith in America.

Recovering information about early African American Bahá’í women is important beyond narrowly historical concerns and should not be regarded as an exercise in tokenism, for knowing the past gives us an “angle of vision” that shapes and informs both the present and the future. Historian Jeanne Noble theorizes that “historic memory,” or “a conscious memory of collective history,” was an active force in motivating early twentieth-century African Americans to strive for the progress of the race as a whole. She indicates that this kind of memory caused individuals to participate in activities that keep “the memories alive” and pass “them along to the next generation and the next.” Noble further suggests that all members of a group suffer when there is a lack of “historic memory” or when such memory is replaced by egocentric attitudes. It is, therefore, essential that Bahá’ís, as a people, develop and preserve their “historic memory” so that future generations of Bahá’ís will fully comprehend the significance of their cultural identity and/or peoplehood. We may begin the process by acknowledging and appreciating the central role of African American women in promulgating the Bahá’í Faith throughout the world from its early beginnings to the present.

The first generation of African American Bahá’í women was a diverse group ranging from housewives to professionals. They were distinguished by their strength and pioneering spirit, their steadfastness, their love of the Bahá’í Faith, and their commitment to its principles. This essay traces the unique history of the first generation of African American Bahá’í women, beginning with Olive Jackson’s acceptance of the Bahá’í Faith in 1899, and ending with that of Dorothy Champ in 1919.

The Problem With History

ONE OF THE difficulties confronting researchers of women’s lives and history is the systematic marginalization of women and people of color. Historical events traditionally have been recorded as if women and people of color were not involved in [Page 42] the important matters of their communities. Until recently, history had truly become “his” story rather than “her” story or “our” story.

African American women in particular have been largely ignored or omitted from scholarly consideration due to the double discrimination they experience as African Americans and as women. According to Gerda Lerner, a prominent specialist in women’s history, one indicator of African American women’s oppression is “denial or neglect of their history.” She comments that within an historical context African American women are literally “invisible” and that “Their records lie buried, seldom read, rarely interpreted.” The bias and ignorance perpetuated by such neglect is not unique to the field of history; it permeates most scholarly disciplines.

Focusing on women as a group, however, introduces the possibility of anonymity within the larger whole. Such a collective approach tends to invite the grouping of women into a nameless, faceless mass without regard to the individuals’ distinct characteristics. Experiences of the dominant group—in this instance white, middle-class, American females —tend to be regarded as universal among all women. Sociologist Margaret Andersen has observed that much of the research of women’s studies is based on the assumption that data from the dominant group establishes the norm or standard for all other groups of women. Women of color and poor women are not represented by such a standard.

Part of the problem, as Lerner points out, is that the study of African American women in American history demonstrates that “generalizations about sex oppression as universal are invalid.” She explains that, contrary to many feminist claims, sex oppression is different for women of dominant and oppressed races and for women of different social classes. Therefore, it is important to understand the sociohistorical context of African American women’s lives as well as the constraints of traditional research to appreciate thoroughly their distinct experiences within the Bahá’í Faith.

Pupils of the Eye: Beginnings

Bahá’u’lláh once compared the colored people to the black pupil of the eye surrounded by the white. In this black pupil is seen the reflection of that which is before it, and through it the light of the spirit shineth forth.”

—‘Abdu’l-Bahá

The entry of African Americans into the Bahá’í Faith began in 1898 with the enrollment of Robert Turner, a butler for the wealthy California socialite Phoebe Hearst. He accompanied Mrs. Hearst on the first Western pilgrimage to the Holy Land during late 1898 and early 1899. Mr. Turner lived with his wife, Melissa, a boarder, and probably his mother-in-law in a white neighborhood in San Francisco. The couple’s only child died unexpectedly. There is no record of Melissa Turner’s becoming a Bahá’í. In a letter to Phoebe Hearst in 1871, Melissa listed expenses she had incurred in carrying out some housekeeping tasks for Mrs. Hearst. She added that her mother was well and that they were doing well except that she missed Robert “very much.” He may have been traveling with Mrs. Hearst, who was not in California at the time. To date, no other letters from Melissa have been located. Robert’s personal correspondence, if it exists, has yet to be found.

Much less is known about Olive Jackson, the first African American woman to become a Bahá’í. The exact date of her enrollment has not been established, but she is listed as a Bahá’í on the 1899 New York City Bahá’í membership roster. She was recorded in the 1900 U.S. census of New York County as a dressmaker and may have been introduced to the Faith by one of her clients.

The small fragments of information about Robert Turner and Olive Jackson indicate [Page 43] that African Americans were well aware of the Faith from its infancy. Both Turner and Jackson dedicated themselves to a new religion that promised to heal the spiritual wounds of a country still recovering from a bloody civil war. Their enrollment marked the beginning of increased entry into the Faith by African Americans who became channels for assisting fellow Bahá’ís in practicing racial unity and social justice.

The brief biographical sketches that follow do not represent a comprehensive survey of early African American Bahá’í women, but rather a selected roster determined, in part, by the amount and availability of information. The data are from primary historical sources housed in archives across the United States and from oral history interviews. Whenever possible, the women’s own words are quoted to give an accurate depiction of a number of early African American Bahá’ís who were truly pioneers in uncharted territories. Accounts of these extraordinary women are like hidden jewels in a treasure chest buried beneath the sea. Once the chest is opened and the knowledge revealed, their distinct and precious qualities enrich our lives.

Radiant Lights

BY THE EARLY 1900s the nation had begun to see signs of a new economic prosperity stimulated by industrialization and the growth of cities. The African American community continued its post-Reconstruction progress and concentrated on racial uplift among other issues. As a result, many important efforts to establish racial equality took place, including the formation of the N.A.A.C.P. in 1909 and the National Urban League in 1911. Also in 1911 writer and activist Jane Hunter organized the Phyllis Wheatley Association in Cleveland, Ohio. The association maintained a residence for working African American women living away from home. It was during this time of social progress that an African American woman in Richmond, Virginia, Mrs. Susie C. Stewart, wrote a letter describing her commitment to the Bahá’í Faith.

Susie C. Stewart. Mrs. Stewart’s letter dated 4 May 1911 is testimony to her steadfastness and purity of heart. Confined indoors with a “severe attack of bronchitis,” she referred to herself as an “unworthy servant” striving daily to attain perfection. She did not look upon her illness as a burden:

You will be glad to know that I take my illness as a blessing, for many blessed opportunities have been given me to spread the Word among some whom I would not have met in a long while but for the illness, and I could be very grateful to God for transferring me here for a while, at least, for my labors.

Mrs. Stewart had apparently helped to raise funds for building the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, but eventually had to terminate most activities due to her illness. Again, she found opportunity in failing health:

If I am able to take up my position again I shall be glad as the offer of it came in direct, immediate answer to my prayer; to be able to help the Mashrak-el-Azkar, but if I am unable to resume my duties I shall be just as happy, knowing that my physical weakness may lead me to greater spiritual health.

In addition, Mrs. Stewart commented on a poem she had written entitled “Perfect Union.” She described the inspiration that led her to write the poem and enclosed a copy in her letter:

Thanks for your kind words concerning my verses. I am not a poetess, never wrote a poem before; but one night, while I lay awake praying for perfect union among the believers the words appeared to me as if in letters of Light. The next morning they continued to ring within my soul until I had to write them, so I sat down amid the whirr [sic] of the sewing machine [Page 44] and wrote them off without any trouble as to rhyming. I knew God meant that I should write them for some good purpose, so I obeyed.

The lengthy poem written in her beautiful, flowing handwriting ended with a reference to the anticipated visit of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, son and appointed successor of Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith:

In love, and prayer, and service may we all united be,

That the Coming of our Beloved to these shores we soon may see;

To prove our perfect union, raise the Temple while we may.

Abdul-Baha calls to union; let us hasten to obey!

Despite her positive outlook, Mrs. Stewart’s health continued to fail. She mentioned suffering from a “physical breakdown” in addition to the bronchitis. Mrs. Susie Stewart passed away in the summer of 1911. She was remembered most for her teaching efforts and was known to have sowed “much seed in Richmond.”

Leila Y. Pane. At least two African American women became Bahá’ís in 1912, the year of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to North America. Born in South Carolina in 1884, Leila Y. Pane became a Bahá’í in April 1912. She was married and had one son, Henry P. Pane, Jr. Mrs. Pane has briefly described her introduction to the Bahá’í Faith:

Attended my first Bahá’í meeting in 1912. Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, Washington, D.C. Accompanied by Dr. and Mrs. James R. Wilder. Here in this assembly Abdu’l-Baha gave one of his soul stirring messages of Baha’u’llah through an interpreter.

Mrs. Pane listed a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, address as her place of residence.

Harriet Gibbs Marshall. The second African American woman known to have enrolled in the Bahá’í Faith in 1912 was Harriet Gibbs Marshall. Mrs. Marshall had shown an interest in the Faith as early as 1910 when she began holding regular informal meetings in her home to discuss the Bahá’í Faith. She continued the meetings in her home for several years.

Mrs. Marshall, the daughter of Judge M. W. Gibbs and Marie Alexander, was born in 1870 on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She grew up in Oberlin, Ohio, the site of Oberlin College, the first institution of higher education in the United States to admit women and African Americans. She married army Captain Napoleon B. Marshall, an 1897 Harvard graduate who practiced law after serving in the military. Captain Marshall is not known to have become a Bahá’í.

Talented and well educated, Mrs. Marshall in 1899 became the first African American woman to graduate from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She majored in piano, harmony, voice, and pipe organ. Her love of music eventually took her to Paris, where she studied piano with noted pianist and composer Moritz Moszkowski. In 1902 Mrs. Marshall was appointed Director of Music for Public schools of Washington, D.C.

In 1903 Mrs. Marshall realized a long-held goal when she founded the Washington Conservatory of Music. The conservatory was a private institution operated exclusively by African American musicians and dedicated to providing African American students with the opportunity to study music through a conservatory approach. When the conservatory expanded in 1906 to include drama and speech, it was renamed the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression. The conservatory was closed in 1960 after school officials concluded that other music institutions were meeting the needs of African American students.

As founder and first president of the conservatory, Mrs. Marshall had a unique vision for the future. In 1937 she made that vision a reality by establishing the National Negro [Page 45] Music Center as part of the conservatory. The center was designed to be a resource in the research and preservation of African American music and to “develop a library of Negro music, present concerts and to prepare books for use in public schools on black music.”

Through Mrs. Marshall’s influence the conservatory was used for Bahá’í meetings at a time when few other public facilities were open to integrated gatherings. One such meeting was hosted in 1914 by Louis and Louisa Gregory. According to a report sent to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the meeting attracted over one hundred people from all races and nationalities, including a Buddhist from India. It was reported that “All were anointed from a bottle of Attar of Rose sent for that purpose by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab [one of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s interpreters]. . . . In this way the Unity of the East and West, as well as the Fragrances of God, was manifested.”

Harriet Gibbs Marshall was a gifted individual who worked tirelessly to educate young African American music students and to spread the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. On 29 January 1937, Louis Gregory wrote to Mrs. Marshall from Haiti, saying: “You are very much loved among them [Haitians] for the constructive services you have rendered them. ‘Welcome to Haiti’, said one of the officials upon knowing that I had a letter of introduction from you. The Baha’i seed sown by you is also having effect.” Mr. Gregory was not alone in his praise of Mrs. Marshall. According to an obituary prepared by the prominent Bahá’í Mariam Haney, Harriet Gibbs Marshall was deeply loved by the Bahá’ís in her community. She never complained despite crippling arthritis in her later years, and she was known for her “loyalty and devotion” and for her sacrificial giving to the Bahá’í Fund: “The element of sacrifice was indeed in all her acts and work.” Mrs. Marshall died on 21 February 1941, having been preceded in death by her husband in 1933.

Mary Brown Martin. After ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to Cleveland in 1912, Bahá’ís ardently continued to tell others about the Bahá’í Faith. Mary Brown Martin, a school teacher, and her husband, Alexander, an attorney, were invited to a talk given by Louis Gregory. Both were intrigued by Mr. Gregory’s talk, and Mrs. Martin was ready to enroll immediately. Together Mr. and Mrs. Martin studied the Faith for about a year and in 1913 became Bahá’ís.

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on 31 May 1877 to Jane and Winfield Scott Brown, Mary was the only girl in a family of six boys. She was known for her buoyant spirit:

Swinging on her front gate as a small child on a day that happened to be her birthday, a neighbor said to her:

“Born on the last day of May, you almost did not get here, little girl!” “Oh no,” piped up Mary, “I’d uv come tomorrow!”

When Mary was nine, her family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Mary was very bright and loved to teach others: “As soon as she could acquire some bit of new knowledge at school, she would hasten home and try to teach it to her younger brothers.” Mary’s love of teaching and learning never subsided. After two years of college, she accepted a teaching appointment at an African American school in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. From that point on teaching became her life’s work.

On 27 September 1905 Mary married Alexander Hamilton Martin. The couple had four children: Lydia Jane; Sarah Elizabeth; Alexander, Jr.; and Stuart Brown. Mr. Martin had completed law school at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in 1898 and was one of the first African Americans to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His daughter Sarah Martin Pereira would be awarded the same honor in the twentieth century.

At the end of World War I, Mrs. Martin became active in the suffragist movement. [Page 46] She was known in the Cleveland area for her commitment to assuring women the right to vote. In the early 1920s Mary returned to the classroom. In 1929 she was elected to the Cleveland Board of Education, the first African American and the second woman to serve on the board. She was again elected in 1933 and 1939 by nonpartisan ballot. Sadly, two weeks after the 1939 election Mrs. Martin passed away following a brief illness:

On the day of her funeral the flags were flown at half-mast on schools and other public buildings, the city schools were closed and the streets along the route to and from the church were lined with throngs of people, many of whom had lost their best friend.

Mary’s legacy still lives on. In a 1965 public ceremony the Cleveland Board of Education named a new elementary school the Mary B. Martin Elementary School. Two of the Martin children, Ms. Lydia Martin and Dr. Sarah Martin Pereira, became well known as exemplary Bahá’ís who shared the Faith with people in many parts of the world.

Mrs. Martin is most remembered for her love of teaching, community activism, and devotion to the Bahá’í Faith. She worked diligently with the Cleveland Parent-Teachers Organization for many years, inspired her students to achieve meaningful personal goals, and opened her home to Bahá’í meetings for friends and strangers alike.

---

MARY BROWN MARTIN
a devoted and active Bahá’í from 1913 to 1939
and the first African American and the second
woman to serve on the Cleveland Board
of Education

---

Hallie Elvera Queen. Like Mary Brown Martin, Hallie Elvera Queen was an educator who became a Bahá’í sometime in 1912 or 1913. Ms. Queen earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell in 1908 and a master’s degree from Stanford in 1923. She taught German, French, and Spanish at Howard University in Washington, D.C., from 1915 through 1917. Before that she was an English teacher in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, from 1909 to 1912 and then served as principal teacher in 1912 and 1913. A letter she wrote in 1913 from Puerto Rico indicated her commitment to the Bahá’í Faith. She briefly outlined the difficulties of teaching the Faith in that country but was confident that every effort counted: “I made small mention of the Cause as a Cause, but strove to instill its teachings. What little I have been able to do, I lay at the Master’s [‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s] Feet.” Ms. Queen listed some of her teaching activities with students, including sending baskets of fruit and clothing to poor women and exhorting male students to believe that “the girls were their equals.”

The author of several publications, including essays in The Crisis, a journal published by the N.A.A.C.P., Hallie Queen organized the first chapter of the American Red Cross at Howard University in 1917. The eighty African American women who composed [Page 47] the chapter’s membership formed the “largest single sewing unit in the organization.” The group volunteered to make one thousand garments and completed sixty-four of those garments at the first regular meeting. Hallie Queen was elected chair. The university newspaper reported that the Red Cross chapter “promises to be one of the most enthusiastic movements ever made among women of Howard University.”

---

CORALIE FRANKLIN COOK
an ardent promoter of the Bahá’í Faith
and its teachings on racial equality, the Chair
of Oratory at Howard University, and a member
of the District of Columbia Board of Education

---

Coralie Franklin Cook. Howard University was also the home of George and Coralie Cook, who became Bahá’í’s around 1913. Coralie Franklin, born in Lexington, Virginia, was educated at Storer College in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, Emerson College in Boston, Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute, and the Shoemaker School of Oratory. George, born in slavery on 7 January 1855 in Winchester, Virginia, escaped from slavery, and later attended school. He graduated from Howard University with a bachelor of arts degree in 1866 and a law degree in 1898. He taught at the university for several years before moving on to administrative positions including secretary and business manager and Dean of the School of Commerce and Finance. The couple married on 31 August 1898 and had one son, George Will Cook, Jr.

Mrs. Cook served as superintendent of the Washington Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children and as the Chair of Oratory at Howard University. In 1914 she was appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education and served until 1926, the longest term held by any board member.

The Cooks heard about the Bahá’í Faith as early as 1910 through Joseph and Pauline Hannen, two very active Bahá’ís in the Washington, D.C., area. In letters written to the Hannens that year, Mrs. Cook expressed her interest in the Bahá’í Faith and her willingness to organize meetings for Bahá’í speakers:

You may be sure that the little booklet from Mr. Wilhelm [a prominent Bahá’í who traveled across the United States in order to tell others about the Bahá’í Faith] was received with grateful pleasure. I could not put it down until I had read it thru. The cover design is unique and the entire contents wonderfully appealing. If you can find speakers so impressive as those we listened to Sunday night it will be a joy to me to gather a company to listen to you. My friends were very generally impressed not only with the wisdom of your teaching but with the earnestness and sincerity of the teachers.

Mrs. Cook brought the same zeal exhibited in the letter to her activities as a Bahá’í. She used her talents as a speaker and writer to promote the Faith, especially on the Howard University campus. She frequently gave talks at Bahá’í meetings and at secular community events.

[Page 48] In 1914, probably at the suggestion of one or both of the Hannens, Mrs. Cook wrote a letter to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, detailing her opinions on issues of racial prejudice. The typewritten, four-and-one-half page, single-spaced letter was a masterpiece of rhetoric. Using historical examples to support her ideas, she pointed out that harmful attitudes were held by both African Americans and whites, noting that while some whites supported civil rights, others “are either active participants in, or silent witnesses of the gross injustice.” Mrs. Cook paid special attention to the issue of mixed marriages:

This mixing of the two Races we are told is biologically unfit, will degrade posterity and vitiate the noble Saxon blood. [B]ut even from such unholy alliance came the great Fred[e]rick Douglass and our Gifted Du Bois is plainly of mixed blood, this same admixture gave to France her Dumas, to Russia her Pushkin, while some go so far as to claim the African strain courses through the blood of the Great Robert Browning and the early American Patriot Alexander Hamilton. Surely such examples in no wise incite the alarming theory of race deterioration.

She further strengthened her position by using an example from the modern society in which she lived:

Numerous examples might be given where colored boys and girls in competition with whites outstrip the lat[t]er amazingly. For example a fourteen year old colored girl has recently taken a prize for proficiency in German over 107 white competitors, EIGHTEEN of WHOME [sic] WERE OF GERMAN DESCENT. Nor do these instances in any way reflect upon the capacity of the full blooded negro.

Mrs. Cook concluded this section of her letter by stating that “Intelligent colored people . . . take the position that it [mixed marriage] is a question for the two parties concerned to settle for themselves. . . .” Mrs. Cook’s letter contained many similarly constructed persuasive passages. She consistently illustrated her major points by employing examples from history and from current daily life.

In the concluding section of her letter, Mrs. Cook turned her focus to the Bahá’í community: “To any one of the Bahai faith to whom the tempter says ‘temporize’ or let the matter work itself out I say beware! When was ever a mighty Principle championed by temporizing or delay. I know some must suffer both white and black, but who better able to wear the mantle of suffering tha[n] the real Bahai?” In essence, Mrs. Cook’s writing, like her eloquent talks, was thought provoking, well documented, and convincing.

Sadie Oglesby. Two more African Americans who were concerned about racial unity were Sadie and Mabry Oglesby, who became Bahá’ís in 1914. Both Sadie and her husband, Mabry, were active in the Faith and served on numerous Bahá’í committees as well as the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Boston, the local governing body of the Bahá’í community. After the 1919 race riots in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and other parts of the country, the Oglesbys sent a letter dated 1 September 1919 to Harlan Ober, president of the Bahá’í Unity Board (the forerunner of the National Spiritual Assembly), urging the Bahá’ís to turn issues of racial strife into opportunities to create unity by teaching the Faith:

But since the Bahais know before these things [riots, conflicts] occur their cause and remedy our id[e]a is to use this psychological moment to prevent if possible these occurrence[s] and at the same time have the seed of the remedy already planted in the hearts.

They offered specific suggestions and emphasized the need for action and not useless talk.

In 1927 Mrs. Oglesby and her daughter Bertha Parvine Oglesby went on pilgrimage [Page 49] to the Holy Land, becoming the first African American women to do so. According to Mrs. Oglesby’s account, a few hours after arriving in Haifa on 11 March, she and the other American pilgrims were greeted by Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. He immediately asked Mrs. Oglesby how many African American Bahá’ís there were. When she told him there were only a few, Shoghi Effendi replied, “the Cause needs the colored people and cannot be established without them. . . . The friends should practice all the teachings and not only a part and this will draw the colored people to The Cause.” This initial exchange became an on-going dialogue that lasted throughout the duration of her pilgrimage.

---

SADIE OGLESBY
a member of the Spiritual Assembly
of the Bahá’ís of Boston and a proponent
of the Bahá’í teachings on the equality
of the races. Her efforts were catalyzed
by the 1919 race riots in the United States
and by conversations with and directives from
Shoghi Effendi in 1927.

---

At another time during Mrs. Oglesby’s pilgrimage Shoghi Effendi again asked her if she had been forceful in helping Bahá’ís understand the importance of the oneness of humankind. When she said she had not, he offered some specific observations:

He said I should be insistent and urgent upon this matter. That I should be persistent and not quiet so that the believers may learn of this great need. He told me I had been negligent, indifferent and had not done my duty upon this subject.

Slowly, Shoghi Effendi impressed upon Mrs. Oglesby the importance of speaking out about racism, an issue he later called “the most vital and challenging issue” facing American Bahá’ís. He urged her to make that her goal when she returned to the United States. At first she resisted: “I expressed my great sorrow to him and told him I was quite unprepared, unqualified for the work he wished me to do. I said to him, ‘I have no strength or importance in America. I am so sorry.’” Yet the Guardian insisted, “When you return to America do as I have told you. Be fearless and know that the invisible concourse will assist you and I will supplicate at the Holy Shrine in your behalf.”

Although Shoghi Effendi repeatedly stressed the importance of racial unity, other pilgrims did not seem to understand:

One day at dinner with the pilgrims, both eastern [from Persia] and western [from Europe and North America], Shoghi Effendi, as he discoursed upon the matter of unity between the white and colored people, was interrupted several times and to each of those who sought information upon other matters he said, “That is not important,” but urged the need of a center in America composed of the two races. . . . “America’s problem is the establishment of unity and harmony between the white and colored people.” He said, “Racial prejudice and differences on the part of nonbelievers is a problem but there should be no racial problem on the part of the believers.”

[Page 50] On 27 March, Shoghi Effendi sat with Mrs. Oglesby in the parlor of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s home and said to her: “My charge to you is that when you go back to America, tell the friends to look within themselves and find there the reason of so few colored people being in the Cause. Until this is removed, the Cause cannot grow.” He also advised Sadie to take teaching trips to the South when she felt that she had done all that she could to promote solutions to the most challenging issue, racial conflict.

During their last meeting before her departure, Mrs. Oglesby asked Shoghi Effendi “if he would write something so that they [the Bahá’ís] might know his position [on racial harmony] and he said he would.” The Advent of Divine Justice, at least in part, may be a direct result of Shoghi Effendi’s conversations with Sadie Oglesby. After twenty days in Haifa and several private audiences with Shoghi Effendi, Sadie Oglesby left Haifa with a new purpose. In a letter to her husband, Shoghi Effendi said of Mrs. Oglesby that her “pure faith, tender devotion and ardent zeal I shall ever remember.”

Subsequent letters between Shoghi Effendi and Mrs. Oglesby demonstrated her commitment to the task. Upon her return to the United States, she immediately took action by assuming an energetic role in the 1927 National Bahá’í Convention, the annual meeting held to elect members of the national governing body, the national spiritual assembly. She spoke at length about the theme of her pilgrimage, racial unity. During her speech at the convention, she candidly revealed the impact of the Shoghi Effendi’s words on her life, “We are not the same people we were before we went away. . . . So, I know what my work is now, as I never knew it before.” Throughout the next ten years Mrs. Oglesby tirelessly devoted her energies to promoting unity between the races. She wrote Shoghi Effendi regularly and told him of her activities. As he had promised, Shoghi Effendi supported and encouraged her.

Although Mrs. Oglesby was not always sure of the impact of her crusade on the Bahá’í community, the following account of a Bahá’í youth is evidence that Sadie’s efforts were not in vain:

Sixteen year old Mary Maxwell[,] a beautiful and most refreshing girl to know, was Chairman of the Youth Movement in Montreal, and she told me how after the Convention with its inspiration through Mrs. Oglesby, she had persuaded two other girls and three youths to accompany her to a dance given by the Colored People for raising money to build a Settlement House. They danced with the Colored Young People rather than with each other, stayed until the lights went out, and felt that their spirit to promote good will between the races had been accepted in good faith, for all, both white and colored, seemed to have a splendid time.

Louis Gregory, in a 1933 letter to Horace Holley, secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada, said of the Oglesbys: “First of all let me express admiration for both Mr. and Mrs. Oglesby for their enthusiasm in the service of the Cause [Bahá’í Faith] over a long period of years, their deep interest in the work and for sacrifice involved in two members of that family, mother and daughter, making a pilgrimage to Haifa.”

Rosa Shaw. Following the path cleared by earlier African American believers, Rosa Shaw became a Bahá’í in 1915; her future husband John enrolled in the Faith in 1919. Rosa was born in Plymouth, Montserrat, British West Indies, on November 11, and John, in Kingston, Jamaica, on September 6. They were married on 9 May 1921. The Shaws, along With John’s mother, lived on Broderick Street in San Francisco.

Both of the Shaws were active in the San Francisco Bahá’í community. Rosa was an Esperantist and participated in study classes held at various locations throughout the city. [Page 51] The Shaws, as did other Bahá’í couples, served on several committees and sometimes found themselves on the same committee. John was elected to the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of San Francisco in 1927, 1931, and 1934. Rosa was a member of the Hospitality Committee, the Teaching Committee, and chaired the Housing Committee.

---

ROSA SHAW
a member of several committees
in the San Francisco Bahá’í community,
an Esperantist, and a pioneer during
the Bahá’ís first Seven Year Plan.

---

However, the Shaws did not confine their activities to local matters. The National Spiritual Assembly’s 1939 report to Shoghi Effendi about Bahá’ís who had resettled in other parts of the world to teach the Faith and help fulfill the goals of the first Seven Year Plan lists Mr. and Mrs. Shaw as having relocated to Haiti. In 1943 and 1944 Mrs. Shaw traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the same purpose. While she was away, Mr. Shaw continued his Bahá’í activities, including giving a talk at the Geyserville, California, Bahá’í Summer School entitled “The Negro as a World Citizen.” The lecture was subsequently printed in the local newspaper, The People’s Advocate, on 5 January 1944.

Zylpha O. Johnson Mapp. Another African American Bahá’í leader was Zylpha O. Johnson Mapp, born on 7 October 1890 in Boston. In 1908 Zylpha was the first African American woman to graduate from Plymouth [Massachusetts] High School, following the example of her father, William Johnson, who in the mid-1880s had been the first African American to graduate from the same school. After completing high school, Zylpha returned to Boston to attend nursing school but could not do so immediately because the law required that a student be at least twenty-one years of age. While waiting to enter nursing school, Zylpha met Alexander M. Mapp, an architect, contractor, and builder from Barbados, West Indies. The couple married on June 15, 1910. Mrs. Mapp became a Bahá’í in September 1916 in the home of Harlan and Grace Ober, two prominent Bahá’ís in the Boston area who enrolled many new Bahá’ís in the early days of the Faith. She eventually raised her five children as Bahá’ís; her husband never became a Bahá’í.

In 1922 the Mapp family moved to Avon, a Boston suburb, and found that they had inadvertently integrated the all-white town of two thousand residents. As the only African American family in town, they faced some initial hostility:

Mrs. Mapp lives in a town where her family is the only one of color. When she moved there . . . she was offered $1,000 to leave. Now all opposition to her has passed. Her children mingle freely with the white children and she entertains her white neighbors in her home.

Ironically, acceptance of the Mapp family by their neighbors came about when the family home was damaged by fire. Although no one was injured, the Mapps lost their belongings and were taken in by three other families while their house was being repaired.

Mrs. Mapp was elected to the Spiritual [Page 52] Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Boston in 1929 and served until 1934, holding the office of secretary from 1930 to 1934. Her daughter, Zylpha Mapp Robinson, an extraordinary Bahá’í in her own right, recalled an instance when her mother walked through hip-deep snow to attend an Assembly meeting, repeating the Greatest Name with each step because the snow was so deep and the weather so cold that it was almost unbearable. Mrs. Mapp herself recognized the role her faith and steadfastness played in enabling her to carry on under difficult circumstances:

I . . . live on a farm seventeen miles from Boston but somehow the Master [‘Abdu’l-Bahá] makes it possible for me to travel back and forth to the meetings, and through His will I am to be the secretary. I know since He has raised me to that station He will help me carry on. We must not shirk, but always show our willingness to work.

---

ZYLPHA O. JOHNSON MAPP
the first African American woman to graduate
from Plymouth, Massachusetts, High School
and to be president of the Springfield, Massachusetts,
Federation of Women’s Club; the cosponsor
with the Boston Urban League of a camp for
underprivileged children; a member of the
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Boston;
and a devoted exponent of the Bahá’í teaching
on unity and harmony

---

Like many African American Bahá’í women before her, Mrs. Mapp believed in giving something back to the community. On her own property and with the cosponsorship of the Boston Urban League, she established a camp for underprivileged children from the Boston area. Named Camp Azjaowe, it was built by her husband, Alexander, and proved to be a unifying force for the family, for each member had a job to do. Mrs. Mapp structured the camp program so that it began and ended with prayers.

While her own children were still in school, Zylpha enrolled in the Portia Law School. She completed two and one-half years but had to quit due to the illness and death of her father and the difficulties generated by the Great Depression. In 1960 Zylpha assumed an active role in the Springfield [Massachusetts] Federation of Women’s Clubs. She became its first African American president and served for four consecutive years. She even turned her sewing hobby into a service for the Women’s Clubs. From 1961 to 1965 she “designed, cut-out and sewed fifty to sixty dresses a year” and sent them to Indian children on the reservation at the White Earth Mission. In addition to her many services and interests, Mrs. Mapp also wrote poetry on various subjects including the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Mrs. Mapp corresponded regularly with Shoghi Effendi and also with Louis Gregory with whom she later led discussion groups at Green Acre Bahá’í School in Eliot, Maine. In one of his letters Shoghi Effendi encouraged Mrs. Mapp “to devote her life to the unity and harmony of the black and white races in America.” She responded by increasing her teaching activities and eventually became known for her “special firesides” and her “knowledge of the Faith.” In 1968 at the age of seventy-seven, Mrs. Mapp went on a very [Page 53] successful traveling teaching trip to Barbados, West Indies.

Annie K Lewis. Annie K. Lewis, another of the first generation of African American Bahá’í women, was born in Georgia on 16 February 1883. In 1905 she married on her birthday. In November 1917 she became a Bahá’í in New York City. Her “only desire,” she wrote, was “to live to serve the Cause of Baha’u’llah. To work interracial till all mankind can live in peace, love & harmony and go forward with courage in the Cause of God. To build the New World Order.”

A report of the 1931 Interracial Amity Convention indicates that Mrs. Lewis brought to the attention of the convention the need to “be practical in their meetings; also that any conclusion reached should not end in words.” More important, Mrs. Lewis made it known that Bahá’í administration must reflect Bahá’í principles. She observed that there was not a single African American delegate at last year’s annual convention. To emphasize her point she cited a remark from one of her acquaintances: “Non-Bahá’í colored people in some places have even asked . . . why the colored Bahá’ís did not have a separate church like the Christians, as they [colored people] could see no difference in their [colored Bahá’ís’] treatment.” Mrs. Lewis was devoted to helping her fellow Bahá’ís make racial harmony a reality.

Georgia M. D’Baptiste Faulkner. Another African American woman who became a Bahá’í shortly after Annie K. Lewis was Mrs. Georgia M. D’Baptiste Faulkner, who enrolled in the spring of 1918. A teacher and social worker, she was born 24 November 1867 in Chicago, Illinois. Mrs. Faulkner was a widow with one living adult child. She actively participated in the Chicago Bahá’í community by holding weekly meetings in her home and by hosting “very impressive lessons and talks from Bahá’í members and also noted visiting Bahá’í friends.”

Dorothy Champ. The end of the remarkable first generation of African American Bahá’í women was highlighted by the enrollment of Dorothy Champ, a broadway dancer and actress who gave up her career when she became a Bahá’í in 1919. In that year she also became the first African American elected to the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of New York City.

Dorothy was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, on 23 February 1893. In addition to being an actress and dancer, she was a dressmaker who started her own business and designed fashions for her clients in Providence and New York until her retirement.

---

DOROTHY CHAMP
the first African American elected to the
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of
New York City, a pioneer during the Bahá’ís’
first Seven Year Plan, and a dancer, actress,
and dress designer who, from 1919 to 1979,
devoted her life to unifying the Bahai community.

---

In 1942 Mrs. Champ moved to Wilmington, Delaware, to teach the Bahá’í Faith as one of her personal goals to help fulfill the goals of the first Seven Year Plan. She also [Page 54] moved to other cities to continue her teaching work, including Elizabeth, New Jersey, and, later, East Providence, Rhode Island, where she served for several years on the spiritual assembly. As a matter of practice, Dorothy traveled up and down the East Coast giving firesides and public talks on the Bahá’í Faith.

Mrs. Champ was well known as dedicated and steadfast and as a unifying force within the Bahá’í community: “Her love for God and His Cause was so strong that the fire would flash from her blazing eyes, galvanizing those who heard her speak.” Shortly before she died, Mrs. Champ received a letter from a friend saying, “I remember when we were in the kitchen, how you told us we must be willing to die for the Faith, what I remember is how you said it.”

Dorothy Champ died in East Providence, Rhode Island, on 28 November 1979. Because she was not survived by her husband, who died in 1933, her Bahá’í friends donated funds from the sale of her possessions to the Louis G. Gregory Bahá’í Institute, a Bahá’í teaching institute in Hemingway, South Carolina.

Conclusion

THE FIRST generation of African American women to become Bahá’ís in North America were a unique mix of individuals from across the country and various socioeconomic backgrounds. They all took different paths to the Faith. Many were introduced to the Faith by the Obers, the Hannens, or Louis Gregory. Still others had the distinct privilege of meeting or corresponding with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. Common patterns among these trailblazers include activism in their respective communities—especially in the areas of women’s rights, racial harmony, and commitment to education—and close family ties, even when husbands and parents did not become Bahá’ís.

Of particular note are Shoghi Effendi’s instructions to Sadie Oglesby and Zylpha Mapp to dedicate themselves to helping Bahá’ís implement the principle of racial harmony. Undoubtedly, this fundamental tenet of the Bahá’í Faith was like a magnet that drew some of the early African American Bahá’ís, both women and men, to enroll in the Faith. However, regardless of the cause of their initial attraction, all of the African American Bahá’í women were actively interested and involved in the elimination of racial prejudice. At the same time, however, they were not narrowly focused on a single element of the Faith but steadfastly endeavored to incorporate the whole of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings into their lives. The tremendous significance of the innumerable contributions of African American Bahá’í women to the Faith will, no doubt, become evident in the future. As we continue to reclaim our glorious past and remove obstacles that have obscured a culturally diverse history, more “hidden jewels,” or lives of distinction, will be uncovered according to Bahá’u’lláh’s promise: “By the righteousness of the one true God! If one speck of a jewel be lost or buried beneath a mountain of stones, and lie hidden beyond the seven seas, the Hand of Omnipotence would assuredly reveal it in this day, pure and cleansed from dross.”

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[Page 56]

[Page 57]

[Page 58]

Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee,

a place I see in reflective places in my mind,

where blood was once spilled and children

were crying.

They say he came from across the flat land one day,

like a tornado, approaching with silence and calm,

the force suddenly upon them, then leaving swiftly

from the destruction if left behind.

He came by the name they call Wasicus.

For them, it is a name full of fear and full of hatred.

He trailed the land with a dark heart, leaving

behind ones who are still grieving.

Even the men were in shock from his presence.

They were there to dance and praise the Creator because of

a prophesy, a vision of a world that even includes the Wasicus.

Wounded Knee can leave my mind while I think of beautiful

sun sets and snow capped mountains like a child without fear.

My mind sees other things besides that cold winter day.

Yet my tears shall remain and my heart full of sorrow when I

think once again when the snow became red.

—Marcia L. Daoud

Copyright © 1994 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

[Page 59]

Little One of Bangladesh

The Mother wraps the end of her ragged shari upon her head

The naked child sleeps in her arms.

Sleep little one of Bangladesh.

Sleep from the hunger than overwhelms your belly.

Your mother comforts you without golden bangles nor

silk woven sharis.

The coconut oil is not smelled in her hair.

Sleep little one of Bangladesh.

Sleep from the diseases in your country.

I see your house made from bamboo.

The mounded earth is your floor.

The cobra shall resist to enter.

Sleep little one of Bangladesh.

Sleep from the monsoon season.

Soon the fierce winds and huge waves shall

return from the Bay of Bengal.

More peril you must face.

The Mother’s ragged Shari falls from her head.

The little one continues to slumber in his Mother’s

arms without golden bangles.

—Marcia L. Daoud

Copyright © 1994 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the Unites States

[Page 60]

[Page 61]

The Mind’s Spat With the Heart

A REVIEW OF ROGER WHITE’S Notes Postmarked The Mountain of God (RICHMOND, BRITISH COLUMBIA: NEW LEAF PUBLISHING, 1992), VIII + 34 PAGES

BY SEN MCGLINN

Copyright © 1994 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States.

ROGER WHITE’S Notes Postmarked The Mountain of God is a cycle of poems structured around the nine days of a pilgrimage, but it is not a poetic description of a pilgrimage. The central themes are “the mind’s spat with the heart” and the incarnation. Not, of course, God’s incarnation, but our own, our uneasy alliance of spirit and indispensable flesh. The sequence of what Bahá’ís might call “pilgrimage experiences” is inextricably tied to earthly details, positive and negative: a bad night’s sleep, too-hot coffee, a birdsong in the gardens. The revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is linked with a neighbor’s flapping laundry.

At the same time, Notes is the narrative of a particular pilgrimage. The character of the pilgrim is piece by piece revealed in and between the lines, and the particularity of the places, orange blossoms and heat, taxis and tourists, and the pilgrim house are there. But the sequence of the pilgrimage seems to be a deliberately adopted form in which the pilgrim’s meditations can evolve. The Mountain of God and the daily insistences of Israel provide a landscape of symbols for ideal and everyday realities. The pilgrim begins with a certain picture of a “spiritual” pilgrimage, which is at first confirmed: the postcards Of Haifa did not lie, and the pilgrim house and pilgrim group are like home and family rediscovered. But he finds that he himself is the incongruous piece in the picture:

He hears a fellow pilgrim weep

and longs to have his own heart break

or conflagrate that he might rush forward,

ashes dribbling from his cupped hands,

to scatter them upon the threshold.

A scornful voice in his head causes him to squirm.

The poem the pilgrim writes that evening, the first of several inset within the frame of the whole, reflects on the vindication of the Báb, but his dreams are not triumphant. They are troubled by painful memories and presided over by crows, “their light-struck feathers / glinting with vague menace.” The poem of the following morning is infinitely more positive than that of the previous evening; there is a willingness to accept what is, to let go of his own insistence on what ought to be. It is a first step in the progression of the poem. The pilgrim has a moment of rightness—which is characteristically interrupted by the hotel’s wake-up call.

The poem progresses toward an acceptance of the internal and external dichotomies. The voice in the pilgrim’s head, which he calls his “spurious brother,” is eventually recognized to be an integral part of his true self and is embraced:

[Page 62]

To claim

this home,

. . . enter whole or else remain,

Eden’s orphan; understand—the brother blesses, too,

though is not blessed with sight.

Not the least of the gifts which this brother gives us is the potential of art. The pilgrim is compared to the bird in the garden, whose “unself-conscious trill . . . / clothes in song his mounting ecstasy.” It is not the pilgrim’s lot to remain in this “unself-conscious” state for long. Self-consciousness prevents him from being submerged in experience. But it is this distance, and then the consciousness of the distance, and finally the acceptance of the distance, that generates the pilgrim’s poems. Thus the “spurious brother” is also a vehicle of grace. “Accept! Accept!” runs like a refrain through the poem, calling attention to a dead metaphor Bahá’ís frequently use. They say that they have “accepted the Bahá’í Faith” or have “accepted Bahá’u’lláh,” but they act and think as if they have got, found, or grasped. “. . . with every breath we must choose grace. Stasis is death.”

Embedded in the poem are lines and complete poems published elsewhere, given here a new setting and thus a particular interpretation by the poet himself—an added bonus for Roger White aficionados. The assembly of the whole into the chosen form, however, falters on occasion; the lineation at times rings a false note—for example, where sections of poesy were written solely to bridge an awkward gap:

All paths lead to the centre where

—aspiration given form—

the marble marvel holds upright

its golden head above Dust that altered history

The break in the rhythm at “above Dust” and the poeticisms of inverted word order and omitted article add nothing to the effect of the poem, which would gain by directness:

[the marble marvel holds its golden head erect

above the Dust that altered history].

Here and there images are not clearly conceived (“flapping laundry, limp as the flags of defeat,” for example). The visualization of the whole lacks the concreteness that one expects in Roger White’s work. This may be because the pilgrimage is a composite of spiritual experiences, and the character of the pilgrim is, to some extent, a fictional creation. Generalization has permitted a slackening of the poet’s discipline.

Notes Postmarked The Mountain of God will never be considered the best of Roger White’s poetry. That honor will belong to one of the many superb character sketches and monologues in his earlier work. But what is being attempted here is worth noting. The form of the pilgrimage cycle is not a neutral frame on which fragments can be hung. It necessarily begins with arrival; its development must ask what this arrival means, discovering the subtle differences between being there and being there. In other words, this form, as Roger White has given it to us, is a vehicle for the poetry of self-questioning. It does not end with some grand assurance, but the insistent “Accept! Accept!”

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SHEILA W. BANANI, who has had both a poem and a book review published in World Order, holds a M.A. degree in social development and policy planning from UCLA. She was a delegate to the United Nations International Women’s Year Tribune Conference in Mexico City in 1975. Her poem “Life’s Rainbow” was included in the bestselling anthology, When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.

MARCIA DAOUD, who is a clerical assistant in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, finds inspiration for her poetry in the diversity of the human family, particularly in the culture of the Far East, where she spent much of her childhood, and in the traditions of Native Americans.

GWENDOLYN ETTER-LEWIS is an associate professor of English at Western Michigan University where she specializes in dialectology, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. Her primary interests include gender differences in the use of language, African American women in history, and dialects and language. Her many publications include My Soul Is My Own: Oral Narratives of African American Women in the Professions and “The Issue of Literacy: The Myth and the Challenge—A Sociolinguistic Response” in American Reading Forum Yearbook.

SEN MCGLINN was born in New Zealand, where he studied English literature and theology. He now works as an editor and publications consultant for the United Nations University and other institutions in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

DIANE MALOUF is an Assistant Professor of English at Northern Michigan University. Her publications include translations of poems and a short story, as well as academic papers on translation.

PHYLLIS K. PETERSON is a free-lance writer and performer who concentrates on materials for people in recovery. Her Skylark Video—a parent training [Page 65] video—is used by Family Violence Shelters, Parents Anonymous, and the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse. She makes a second appearance in World Order.

ROBERT H. STOCKMAN, who holds a Th.D in the history of religion in the United States from Harvard University, is the author of The Bahá’í Faith in America: Origins, 1892-1900, and a number of articles on the Bahá’í Faith, including “The Bahá’í Faith: Beginnings in North America,” published in the Summer 1984 issue of World Order and an introduction to an annotated selection of letters by Thornton Chase, in the Fall 1993 issue. Dr. Stockman is the Director of the Research Office at the Bahá’í National Center and an instructor of religion at DePaul University in Chicago.

MARLAINA TANNY, a poet and choreographer, lives in the West Indies, where she is a tutor for members of the Barbados Dance Theater. She is also working on her first novel.

JOAN IMIG TAYLOR, a long-time contributor to World Order, won a poet laureate award in the Poetry Review of London. She has published stories and poems in India, England, and the United States and has worked for Sunset Magazine and the Examiner in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Now retired, Ms. Taylor assists the sick and suffering in therapy groups.

ART CREDITS: Cover design by John Solarz; cover photograph, Steve Garrigues; p. 1, photograph, Steve Garrigues; p. 3, photograph, Steve Garrigues; p. 6, photograph, courtesy National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.; p. 7, photograph, courtesy Laila Storch; p. 8, photograph, Steve Garrigues; p. 16, photograph, Steve Garrigues; pp. 20, 21, 27, photographs, courtesy National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.; p. 35, photograph, Henry Taylor, Sr.; p. 40, photograph, Steve Garrigues; pp. 46, 47, 49, photographs, courtesy National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.; p. 51 (left), photograph, courtesy Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis; pp. 51 (right), 53, photographs, courtesy National Bahá’í Archives, Wilmette, Ill.; p. 60, photograph, Hans J. Knospe; p. 63, photograph, Nat Daniels.

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