Baháʼí Faith in South Carolina
The Baháʼí Faith in South Carolina begins in the transition from Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement but defines another approach to the problem, and proceeded according to its teachings.
[25]: pp.153–4 In 1914 Klebs invited Joseph Hannen for a series of talks - James U. Jackson's mansion, at the African-American Schofield Normal and Industrial School, and there was a concert again at the Hampton Terrace Hotel.
Baháʼí speakers continued to be invited and in 1920 Assadu'llah Mazindarani - a designated scholar sent by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá - addressed a colored audience of some 65 men who left with "tears in their eyes.
"[25]: pp.111–7 Gregory made a trip through South Carolina from Wilmington NC in early 1919 before the April annual Baháʼí convention and during it the previous Tablets and some new ones were officially unveiled.
[25]: pp.119–120 The new ones included the quote "unquestionably the divine teachings must reveal themselves with a brighter effulgence… and the fragrances of holiness be diffused with swiftness and rapidity" comparing the situation with Gregory the Illuminator facing the Armenia of long ago but setting the context in seeking freeing the people from racial prejudice - a line of action he foresaw would have "a transforming impact on the United States and the world".
[25]: pp.123–4 Around and between instances of meetings Gregory spoke at several churches in Columbia and connected with Josiah Morse at the University of South Carolina there who then welcomed Baháʼís on a number of occasions into the 1930s.
[25]: pp.127–9 Gregory's talk in 1921 in Columbia at Sidney Park Colored Methodist Episcopal Church inspired a full column response by Lowery[34] which was echoed in a number of newspapers with statewide reach.
[25]: p.131 Lowery listed principles of the religion Gregory had noted and then warned the reader of the case of the young Black lawyer who had listened and died ignominiously (Alfonzo Twine).
"[25]: pp.132–3 But instead of any version of this kind of presentation Lowery only warned that Gregory had malevolent intentions even though he had a "good, clear voice", was "really eloquent and forceful" but "shrewd enough to conceal his real purposes.
[25]: pp.182–3 They spoke to a "campus philosopher" Josiah Morse whom Gregory had met years ago and who may have been responsible for a quote in the student newspaper that "closely resembled Baháʼí teachings.
[25]: p.192 The class studied a number of Baháʼí works between 1934 and 1938 - Baháʼu'lláh and the New Era, a compilation of letters from Shoghi Effendi, Some Answered Questions and other collections of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's writings and talks as well as The Dawn-Breakers.
[25]: pp.192–3 In late 1936 Dr. Zia Bagdadi and his family moved to Augusta, the first Persian Baháʼís to live in the area[25]: pp.192–3 and the community counted some 30 members plus friends and about as many interested contacts.
[25]: p.210 At the same time Shoghi Effendi initiated steps in implementing the directives of the Tablets of the Divine Plan pushing the American community to diffuse from its few cities to embrace every state in the country as well as international goals starting in South America.
[25]: pp.311 A series of movements began across South Carolina for Baháʼís:[25]: p.214 in 1937 Christine Bidwell and Marie Kershaw from North Augusta tried to foster a group in Aiken, in late 1936-7 two women - Amelie Bodmer and May Fisher - traveled the state in a trailer, in late 1937 Emogene Hoagg and Agnes O'Neill spent the winter in Charleston, and Louise Thompson moved there when they left and then Emogene Hoagg returned in 1939.
[25]: p.226–7 [38] W. E. B. DuBois noticed and initially was misinformed of the nature of the resolution to which then secretary of the national assembly Horace Holley responded that the facts were not as DuBois understood them and that it was the hotel that had relented at the last minute - however a policy had been stated that, short of out of control reactions, integrated meetings should be held but in the case of over-reactions segregated meetings could be held with a longer term goal of fully integrated ones theoretically.
[25]: p.235 A situation in the Atlanta Baháʼí community was resolved with integration even to the point of letting White people leave the religion if they couldn't accept the standard.
[25]: pp.259–60 In effect the caution may have avoided the attention prone to violence, it also dampened the practical outreach to African-Americans where other communities across the South succeeded in gaining converts from both White and Black.
[25]: pp.286–88 This was culminated in the Ten Year Crusade that proceeded after the death of Shoghi Effendi[25]: pp.325–327 though among his last letters he emphasized the work of race unity and reaching out the African-American community in the American South.
[25]: p.310–1 Eulalia Barrow Bobo, sister to Joe Louis, visited and gave a talked that much influenced attendees and through several discussions a family of Baptists converted.
[25]: p.298 And in 1956 gained an earnest young couple - Richard and Joy Benson - who moved to Greenville and overcame obstacles like blacklisted for work, and threatening calls at their home when it was clear they socially mingled with African-Americans.
The Baháʼí Faith was mentioned in the April 1965 edition of Ebony Magazine with an article "BAHÁ'Í: A way of life for millions"[57] which was a broad review of the religion with many pictures and locations.
In the winter of 1969 the three families, in consultation with a regional committee,[64] decided to host a meeting in Dillon and word spread for volunteers to come around Christmas/Winter vacations - around 200 people came at the peak of activity.
[73] Shortly after moving there she began to hold meetings and regional conferences where one evening there were 10 simultaneous conversions to the religion and by the end of the weekend a total of 19 did in January 1970.
"[95] Venters continues that the religion succeeded in "Growing against all odds in a hostile environment, it had emerged as a coherent movement with branches in several cities and smaller towns and an unusually diverse body of members.
More than any other religious group in the state, it embodied the ideal of the "beloved community" that Martin Luther King, Jr., articulated as the ultimate goal of the civil rights movement: the vision, rooted in Christian millennial expectation, of a spiritualized polity characterized by justice, love, and the "total interrelatedness" of all people.
"[25]: pp.377–8 The progress was worked "At the midpoint of the traumatic first year of mandatory statewide school desegregation in South Carolina, as disenchantment with the civil rights movement set in among many Blacks and Whites around the country and the competing rhetorics of Black power and White conservatism dominated the national political discourse, the teams of young Baháʼís taught that God had sent a new Messenger to unite the human race.
"[25]: p.382 However "Their small numbers," he continues, "severely limited the ability of the Baháʼís in South Carolina and elsewhere to promote the wholesale transformation of society anticipated in their sacred scriptures, and for which enlightened contemporary leaders like King were increasingly calling.
[96] Dizzy was a Baháʼí since about 1970,[97] was one of the most famous adherents of the religions which helped him make sense of his position in a succession of trumpeters as well as turning his life from knife-carrying roughneck to global citizen, and from alcohol to "soul force",[98] in the words of author Nat Hentoff, who knew Gillespie for forty years.
[99][100][101] Venter's thesis notes "In Georgetown County near Hemingway, a White couple, former Pentecostal ministers who had led most of their congregation into the faith, sold a large tract of family land to the National Spiritual Assembly to establish such a facility.
[105] A campaign was established in the mid-1980s supported by the Continental Board of Counselors "…resulted in some 2500 new enrolments, the settlement of new home-front pioneers in several localities, and initial use of an innovative curriculum—developed by Baháʼís in Colombia(the country in South America) and used increasingly throughout Latin America—for training new believers as teachers.
