[2] The teaching emphasizes the unity of humanity transcending all divisions of race, nation, gender, caste, and social class, while celebrating its diversity.
Unlike the spread of Christianity within Indian country, in the United States, the Baháʼí Faith has never been associated with a fortification of colonial occupation, Euro-American assimilation, or forced conversions of Native Americans.
In Papua New Guinea whereas Christian missionaries openly opposed traditional funerary art and performances, the Baháʼís encouraged their production as a form of worship.
One of the main principles of the Baháʼí Faith that comes about from the unity of humanity is the elimination of all forms of prejudice, and it entails non-discrimination against individuals on such things like race, religion, gender or class.
[22] Called by the scriptures of their faith to “associate with all the peoples and kindreds of the earth with joy and radiance,” they deliberately sought converts from diverse backgrounds, forging bonds of shared religious identity across traditional social boundaries even when their meetings were raided.
By the end of the twentieth century, the Baháʼí Faith was the largest non-Christian religion in South Carolina, and it was well known for its longstanding commitment to promoting racial harmony, interfaith dialogue, and the moral education of children and youth.
In South Africa, faced with the segregated social pattern and laws of Apartheid, the integrated population of Baháʼís had to decide how to be composed in their administrative structures – whether the National Spiritual Assembly would be all black or all white.
Abhorring all forms of prejudice and rejecting any system of segregation, the Baháʼí Faith was introduced on a one-to-one basis and the community quietly grew during the apartheid years, without publicity.
Despite the nature of the politics of that time, we presented our teachings on unity and the oneness of humankind to prominent individuals in politics, commerce and academia and leaders of thought including State Presidents.... [b]oth individual Baháʼís and our administrative institutions were continually watched by the security police.... Our activities did not include opposition to the previous Government for involvement in partisan politics and opposition to government are explicitly prohibited by the sacred Texts of our Faith.... During the time when the previous Government prohibited integration within our communities, rather than divide into separate administrative structures for each population group, we opted to limit membership of the Baháʼí Administration to the black adherents who were and remain in the majority of our membership and thereby placed the entire Baháʼí community under the stewardship of its black membership....
[23][24][25][26]An essential mission in the teachings of Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, was to bring about a consciousness in the peoples of the world regarding the oneness of humankind.
[5] Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Baháʼí Faith in the first half of the 20th century, wrote:[5] The principle of the Oneness of Mankind – the pivot round which all the teachings of Baháʼu'lláh revolve – is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope.
Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cooperation among individual peoples and nations.
Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family....
It calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world....[29]Thus, in the Baháʼí view, unity must be expressed by building a universal and unified social system that is based on spiritual principles.