Society builders pave the way, to a better world to a
better day. A united approach to building new society.

Join conversation, for Social
Transformation. Society Builder

Society Builders with
your host, Duane Varan.

Welcome to Society Builders and thank
you for joining the conversation

for social transformation.

Okay.

Our last four episodes explored how the
early Persian Baha'i community engaged

in society building in their time.

First, by engaging with the discourse
on governance reform in Iran,

helping to give rise to Iran's
first democratic institutions,

and its

first Constitution, and then by
pivoting and shifting their attention

to transforming education in Iran

through the promulgation of a network of
over 60 schools, spread out across the

entire Iranian nation, providing education
to boys and girls alike in a country

that was almost entirely illiterate.

Today we're gonna zip across to
another side of the planet to see

how the early Western Baha'is were
similarly engaged in society building,

responding to the issues of their day.

It's a truly inspiring history that
continues to have an impact on the

shape of the Civil Rights movement
even today, over a century later.

Specifically, across these next
three episodes, we're gonna

explore how Abdul-Baha, and the
generation He inspired, contributed

to the race discourse in America.

Undoubtedly, this was America's most
vital and challenging issue at the

time, and perhaps remains so even today.

Now if you listen to episode 6
of this podcast series, and if you

haven't listened to it, I would highly
recommend this particular episode.

I think it's our best episode yet. But if
you listen to episode 6, you got a bit

of an overview of just how transformative.

Abdul-Baha's travels to the West really was.

And how dramatic it ultimately proved
to be in both awakening the Western

believers to their role in society
building and in influencing leaders of

thought in wider society, leaving an
influence in most modern social discourse.

But perhaps the most enduring impact,
in terms of the social discourses of

the day, was the impact which Abdul-
Baha, and the generation He inspired,

had on the race discourse in America.

As you'll recall from that
episode, the impact of the Baha'i

community on Black thought in this
period is incredibly profound.

Most Black leaders of thought at the time
were deeply aware of the Baha'i teachings.

In fact, Black America was
actively talking about it.

Some of the most influential Black
thinkers of the time actually

embraced the faith and many more
were deeply influenced by it.

So today you're going to hear about how it
was that Abdul-Baha, and the generation He

inspired, promoted race amity, and you'll
discover how influential this became to

the larger race discourse in America,
leaving an enduring impact that still

shapes the race discourse even today.

Now before we can really explore
these profound contributions, we

need to understand the background
and context associated with the race

discourse in America at the time.
We need to understand the America

that was when Abdul-Baha
arrived there in 1912.

So, much of today's episode will focus
on providing us with this background and

historical context. In our next episode,

the second in the sequence, we'll then
explore Abdul-Baha's message and situate

it within the larger race discourse
of its day, and we'll discover why

there was so much interest in Abdul-
Baha and in His message at the time.

And then in the third episode of this
sequence, we'll explore the impact

that these early Baha'i believers in
America had in interacting with the

race discourse during the genesis
of the modern civil rights movement.

And that's when our real fireworks begin.

I think you're gonna be blown away
by what we discover in this third

episode of our sequence here.

So be patient with me today.

Let's together work our way through
this context so we can together

appreciate the contribution of these
early American Baha'is in this arena.

Now, as you know, the whole issue of
slavery was highly divisive in America.

The abolition of slavery was
probably the main social discourse

of the day in America throughout
most of the 19th century.

It was the issue, above all, that shaped
social discourse in 19th century America.

Now the British abolished slavery
in 1833 giving further salience

to this issue in America.

On one hand, slavery was increasingly
seen as an immoral act, giving rise to a

growing number of religious communities,

most notably the Quakers,
taking a stand on this.

But on the other hand, there were others
who viewed it as an economic necessity,

particularly in the agrarian South. So
America was deeply divided on the issue.

In fact, slavery was the
dividing line in America.

Far more important than party
affiliation was where a state

stood on the slavery issue.

And as new states joined the
union, a compromise was reached.

The compromise of 1850. For every
state joining the union that wanted

to be Free, there also had to
be a state that allowed slavery.

This way, no one side of the
issue could outvote the other.

And in many ways this was an
uncomfortable balancing act.

New issues demanded solutions, which
didn't easily accommodate compromise.

For example, part of the compromise of
1850 was the Slave Fugitive Act, which

required Northern states to return
slaves who had escaped back to the South.

Well, for many in the North, this
violated their moral standards.

And so the issues festered.

But the election of Abraham
Lincoln tipped this scale.

Lincoln was the first candidate
elected to the presidency on a

platform that opposed slavery.

He didn't advocate for full abolition,
but his opposition to slavery was enough

to convince Southerners that he would
allow the new Western territories to join

as Free states, tipping the Free-Slave
state balance, giving Free states the

numbers to impose change on the South.

It was that FEAR rather
than any specific action

that was the spark that
ignited the Civil War.

And the Civil War was truly devastating.

I mean, more American lives were
lost during the Civil War than were

lost in World War I, World War II,

the Spanish American War and the
Vietnam War combined. The South

was almost entirely destroyed.

Entire cities went up in flames
and had to be completely rebuilt.

An entire generation was nearly lost.

Many soldiers returned,
maimed and incapacitated.

I mean, it was truly horrific.

And as you know, during the
Civil War, president Lincoln

issued his famous Emancipation
Proclamation freeing Black slaves.

But just a little footnote here,
he didn't really free all slaves.

He only freed them in
the Confederate states.

In fact, there were still union
states that allowed slavery.

But of course, the Emancipation
Proclamation marked a turning point

ushering in the end of slavery,
particularly with the passage of the

13th Amendment that soon followed,
which permanently ended slavery as

a formal institution in America.

And for a very short time,
African-Americans enjoyed the full

rights of American citizenship.

We call this period the Reconstruction.

The foundations for the Reconstruction
were found in three new amendments

to the Constitution, the 13th,
14th, and 15th Amendments.

Collectively, we call these the
Reconstruction Amendments and in federal

legislation that followed new state
constitutions and laws were also enacted

throughout the South that also reflected
these new values, and these were the

price of admission by the Southern
states to be allowed back into the Union.

But these were largely imposed on the
South, and it was Northern troops that

enforced the new laws in the South.

So the South was largely
occupied by the North, which

enforced this new Reconstruction.

Naturally, this caused its own share of
resentment among white Southerners, but at

the same time, it ushered in unimaginable
new opportunities for the Black South.

The result was a dramatic change,
a sudden flourishing of rights

for what were now former slaves.

Of course, Black America was
still economically disadvantaged,

but Black Americans were getting
elected to political office, getting,

paying jobs, getting an education.

In fact, the Reconstruction played
a dramatic role nationally in

introducing public education to America.

It was still an uneasy time in many ways.

Groups like the Ku Klux Klan
terrorized Black America, but federal

troops intervened to protect African
Americans, hunting, and for a time

almost completely eliminating the Klan
Transformative change was truly underway.

But this new wave of opportunity came
to a grinding halt within a decade.

By the late 1870s, many, if not most of
these gains in the South evaporated.

Almost overnight, this new Golden Age
for Black America suddenly derailed

with the presidential election of 1876,

one of the most
controversial in US history,

the pro-freedom Republican candidate won
by only one electoral college vote - still

enough to get the presidency - but there
were 20 votes which were contested, and

without these votes, he could not win.

Southern Democrats agreed to concede
the election, but for a price:

The North would have to leave

the South. Federal troops could
no longer enforce their laws.

This compromise of 1877 brought
Reconstruction to a screeching halt.

In return, for giving the Northern
Republicans the presidency, the Southern

Democrats got an end to Reconstruction.
And this unwinding of Reconstruction

wasn't just a function of the political
and legislative changes that followed.

It was also reinforced by
decisions of the Supreme Court.

Decision after decision whittled away
at the rights of African-Americans.

The new constitutional amendments,
which were originally introduced to

bring about equality were suddenly seen
as imposing limits only on government,

but not on private enterprise.

So there was nothing wrong, under the
court's interpretation, with individuals

or businesses discriminating.

Eventually this led to the 'Separate
but Equal' principle in the Plessy

vs Ferguson case where the Court
essentially sanctioned a policy of

apartheid where Black Americans could
be sent to separate schools, riding

separate train cars and carriages.

Basically, this was a license to
discriminate, and this remained

the new law of the land for a
good part of the next century.

And it also meant that there was
now no one in the South to uphold

the rights of African-Americans.

The Ku Klux Klan suddenly rose from its
ashes and persecuted Black Americans

without consequence. You could
hang Black Americans without any

repercussions. And the political system
was gamed to prevent the Black vote

by introducing new requirements to vote,
like literacy tests or civic knowledge

questions that were deliberately easy
for white voters, but almost impossible

to answer for Black ones. Or requirements
that your grandfather had to have

voted for you to be able to vote.

These are what we call the Jim Crow laws.

They were laws designed
to prevent the Black vote.

But in addition to the political and
judicial changes whittling away at Black

Rights, there were also intellectual
discourses cultivating racism.

And this is a really important
point, because the Jim Crow laws

were largely limited to the South,
but this kind of intellectual

racism became a national discourse.

It shaped attitudes.

Most important was the emergence among
historians of what became known as

the 'Dunning' School of Thought, named
after the historian William Dunning.

Basically, the Dunning School argued that
Blacks had been given the opportunity to

participate in political life following
the Civil War during the Reconstruction,

but that they had failed, proving that
they were not intellectually and

morally fit to participate in government.

The facts supporting
this were entirely bogus.

It was selective and hardly
objective, but it emerged as the

convention in the academic literature.

And there were supposedly scientific
studies - later disproven - that supposedly

proved that African-Americans were
intellectually inferior. Studies,

for example, that counted the number
of marbles a deceased Black skull

could contain while comparing it
to White skulls to argue that Black

skulls could hold less marbles.

So White brains must be bigger.

By the way, read Gould's, 'Mismeasure
of Man', to see how these experiments

were later replicated, using exactly
the same skulls that had been used in

these original studies, to prove that
the reported results were entirely

false. And there was all kind of racist
propaganda like postcards conveying

Black moral inferiority, preying
on people's fears and prejudices.

So there was an active intellectual
discourse driving this new

wave of scientific racism.

It was filled with, what we
call today, fake news, selective

statistics from the situation in
the defeated post-war civil South.

New scientific studies, press
reports, distorting the news.

And as is the tradition in
intellectual discourse, each new

publication built on the last
further reinforcing this discourse.

And again, this kind of scientific
racism prevailed in the North

as much as in the South.

So the racism grew like a cancer.

Because of this, racism was not just
a problem of the American South.

It was an American problem
prevailant everywhere.

It was a discourse that further
poisoned America's views on race.

It was prevailant in intellectual circles
in the North as much as in the South.

And, in fact, it wasn't
just an American problem.

It gave rise to a whole new perspective
popularly called the 'White Man's Burden'.

That became the justification for
apartheid policies worldwide, in

South Africa, in India, just about
everywhere, justifying colonial rule.

This new paradigm asserted that it was
only the White man that was intellectually

and morally properly fit to govern,
so it was the White man's burden.

Now the church played a big
role here as well in further

cultivating this new form of racism.

Now, remember earlier I spoke about
how it was largely the churches that

led to this discourse opposing slavery
throughout the early 19th century.

It was this moral indignation that
drove the abolition of slavery.

But suddenly, once abolition was
achieved, churches went silent.

I mean, thousands of Black Americans
were being lynched every year.

African-Americans suffered every
form of discrimination, and there was

not a peep from America's churches.

Where was their outrage?

Race was no longer a moral issue.

And so the new breed of
intellectual racism went unchecked

without any moral resistance.

There was a despiritualization of
the African-American. So where once

the discussion in social circles
centered on the immorality of slavery,

now these same circles sought to
keep the Black man in his place.

And there's one more strand to the
story that I have to share with you

so that you get the full picture here.

For the most part, the African-American
response to this new oppression was

not to challenge and fight the system.

Understandable, perhaps, because
of the terrors they faced.

But the African-American response
was largely to exercise patience

and focus on incremental gains, an
'accommodationist' approach to change.

Perhaps the most important Black
leader of the post Reconstruction

19th century was Booker T Washington.

Now, Booker Washington did great things
for Black America, particularly in

promoting vocational education, education
centered around a trade, and he was

instrumental in getting white America to
financially contribute to these endeavors.

But at the same time, he was also
instrumental in reinforcing this

approach of seeking only incremental
change and perhaps more detrimentally,

he bought into the whole 'separate but
equal' paradigm, and he promoted it.

Washington, for example,
spoke at the International

Exposition in Atlanta in 1895.

This was the first time a Black
speaker addressed a largely White

public audience in the American South.

And his speech is seen as one of the most
influential speeches in American history,

and it was incredibly well received.

In fact, he got a standing ovation. A
standing ovation by a Black man addressing

a white audience in the American South!

I mean, this was unheard of.

But in his famous 'Atlanta Compromise'
speech, Washington argued that African

Americans should not agitate for social
equality because this was clearly a folly.

Instead, Blacks should work hard, get
an education, and improve their own

lot. And white America should help by
helping to fund vocational initiatives.

So this was his compromise.

White America: 'help fund our vocational
education and we won't agitate for change.

Instead, we will work hard to improve
our own lot.' And this approach

ultimately fed in to the kind of
scientific racism prevailant in the day.

If African-Americans had failed to
improve their lot, it was their own fault.

After all, White America had
showed it charity by helping

fund its vocational schools.

White America had kept their side of
the bargain. And on the question of

social integration, while Washington
bought into the whole 'separate but equal'

principle, in fact, he argued during his
speech, 'In all things that are purely

social, we can be as separate as the
fingers, yet one as the hand in all

things essential to mutual progress.'

Now, White America loved
Booker T Washington.

This was the kind of discourse they were
happy for Black America to engage in.

It was really only slightly before
Abdul-Baha arrived in America that

an alternative discourse had emerged
in the Black American community,

with views on social justice that
contrasted entirely with this

kind of Accommodationist approach.

We'll talk more about that later
in this and in our next podcast.

And it was led by people like W.E.B. Du
Bois and the National Association for

the Advancement of Colored People, the
NAACP, which at the time was viewed

largely as a fairly radical organization.

And we'll discover this later in
our story, how Abdul-Baha addressed

the NAACP at their 4th annual
conference, introducing a new

strand to the race discourse.

And what emerges is a deep interaction
between the Baha'i community and the

NAACP that runs for many decades.

And Abdul-Baha spoke to predominantly
Black audiences on a number of

occasions throughout his travels,
including a major address at

Howard University, the predominant
Black intellectual institution.

And Abdul-Baha's speeches, particularly
to these predominantly Black

audiences, proved to be monumental.

They stimulate new ideas in the nascent
Civil Rights movement in America, and it

becomes hugely influential in shaping the,
the worldview of the Black intelligentsia.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

That's all ground we're gonna cover

in our next two episodes.

Now, I know that was a lot to take in
in our first episode of this sequence

on race unity, but I wanted you to
understand the America that Abdul-Baha

spoke to when he arrived here in 1912.

Yes, slavery had been abolished, but
it would take the better part of the

next century before African-Americans
had anything like, real rights. Racism

was rampant and Black America was truly
disempowered. And it's in this climate

that Abdul-Baha arrives and begins engaging
with the race discourse in America.

Okay, now in our next episode, we'll
explore why there was such interest to

hear Abdul-Baha speak in the first place, and
we'll briefly explore what He talked

about concerning race in His talks and
in His presentations throughout America.

And then in the third episode
of the sequence will explore

the impact this all had.

So I want to thank you once again for
joining us today on Society Builders,

and remember to tune in next time when
we continue our discussion by exploring

Abdul-Baha's message on race unity.

That's next time on Society Builders

Society Builders
pave the way, to a better world, to a

better day. A united approach to building a new society.

There's a crisis facing in humanity.

People suffer from a lack of unity.

It's time for a brand new path to a new society. Join the conversation, for social transformation. Society Builders.

So engage with your local communities
and explore all the exciting possibilities.

We can elevate the atmosphere in
which we move. The paradigm is shifting.

It's so very uplifting.

It's a new beat, a new song, a brand new groove.

Join the conversation, for social transformation.

Society Builders.

The Baha'i Faith has a lot to say,

helping people discover a better way,
with discourse and social action framed by unity.

Now the time has come to lift our game,
and apply the teachings of

the Greatest Name, and rise to meet the glory of our destiny. Join the conversation, for social transformation. Society Builders