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

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Join conversation, for Social
Transformation. Society Builder

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Society Builders with
your host, Duane Varan.

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Welcome to Society Builders and thank
you for joining the conversation

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for social transformation.

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Okay.

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

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in society building in their time.

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

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

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and its

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first Constitution, and then by
pivoting and shifting their attention

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to transforming education in Iran

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

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

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that was almost entirely illiterate.

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

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

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responding to the issues of their day.

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

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

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

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

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to the race discourse in America.

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

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time, and perhaps remains so even today.

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

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

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

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of an overview of just how transformative.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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had on the race discourse in America.

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

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community on Black thought in this
period is incredibly profound.

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

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In fact, Black America was
actively talking about it.

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Some of the most influential Black
thinkers of the time actually

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

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

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

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

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shapes the race discourse even today.

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Now before we can really explore
these profound contributions, we

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need to understand the background
and context associated with the race

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

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that was when Abdul-Baha
arrived there in 1912.

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

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historical context. In our next episode,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And that's when our real fireworks begin.

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

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episode of our sequence here.

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So be patient with me today.

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

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

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

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The abolition of slavery was
probably the main social discourse

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

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

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Now the British abolished slavery
in 1833 giving further salience

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to this issue in America.

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

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growing number of religious communities,

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most notably the Quakers,
taking a stand on this.

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

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

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In fact, slavery was the
dividing line in America.

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Far more important than party
affiliation was where a state

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stood on the slavery issue.

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

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

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

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

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And in many ways this was an
uncomfortable balancing act.

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

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

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

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

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And so the issues festered.

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But the election of Abraham
Lincoln tipped this scale.

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Lincoln was the first candidate
elected to the presidency on a

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platform that opposed slavery.

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

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

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

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numbers to impose change on the South.

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It was that FEAR rather
than any specific action

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that was the spark that
ignited the Civil War.

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And the Civil War was truly devastating.

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

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lost in World War I, World War II,

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

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was almost entirely destroyed.

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

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An entire generation was nearly lost.

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Many soldiers returned,
maimed and incapacitated.

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I mean, it was truly horrific.

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

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issued his famous Emancipation
Proclamation freeing Black slaves.

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

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He only freed them in
the Confederate states.

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

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But of course, the Emancipation
Proclamation marked a turning point

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

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

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a formal institution in America.

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

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rights of American citizenship.

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We call this period the Reconstruction.

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The foundations for the Reconstruction
were found in three new amendments

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

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Collectively, we call these the
Reconstruction Amendments and in federal

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legislation that followed new state
constitutions and laws were also enacted

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

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

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

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enforced the new laws in the South.

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So the South was largely
occupied by the North, which

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enforced this new Reconstruction.

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

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

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

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for what were now former slaves.

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Of course, Black America was
still economically disadvantaged,

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

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paying jobs, getting an education.

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In fact, the Reconstruction played
a dramatic role nationally in

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introducing public education to America.

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It was still an uneasy time in many ways.

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

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

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almost completely eliminating the Klan
Transformative change was truly underway.

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

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

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

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with the presidential election of 1876,

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one of the most
controversial in US history,

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

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

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without these votes, he could not win.

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

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The North would have to leave

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

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This compromise of 1877 brought
Reconstruction to a screeching halt.

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

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

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

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It was also reinforced by
decisions of the Supreme Court.

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

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The new constitutional amendments,
which were originally introduced to

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

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but not on private enterprise.

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

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or businesses discriminating.

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

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vs Ferguson case where the Court
essentially sanctioned a policy of

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

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separate train cars and carriages.

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

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

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

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the rights of African-Americans.

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

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without consequence.  You could
hang Black Americans without any

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

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

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

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

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voted for you to be able to vote.

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These are what we call the Jim Crow laws.

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They were laws designed
to prevent the Black vote.

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

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Rights, there were also intellectual
discourses cultivating racism.

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

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

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racism became a national discourse.

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It shaped attitudes.

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

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

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

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

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

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morally fit to participate in government.

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The facts supporting
this were entirely bogus.

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

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convention in the academic literature.

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

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proved that African-Americans were
intellectually inferior. Studies,

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

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

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skulls could hold less marbles.

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So White brains must be bigger.

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

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

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

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

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

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So there was an active intellectual
discourse driving this new

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wave of scientific racism.

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

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

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New scientific studies, press
reports, distorting the news.

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And as is the tradition in
intellectual discourse, each new

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publication built on the last
further reinforcing this discourse.

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

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as much as in the South.

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So the racism grew like a cancer.

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

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It was an American problem
prevailant everywhere.

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

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

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

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

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That became the justification for
apartheid policies worldwide, in

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

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

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

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

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cultivating this new form of racism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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not a peep from America's churches.

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Where was their outrage?

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Race was no longer a moral issue.

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And so the new breed of
intellectual racism went unchecked

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without any moral resistance.

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

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

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

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

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so that you get the full picture here.

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

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not to challenge and fight the system.

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Understandable, perhaps, because
of the terrors they faced.

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But the African-American response
was largely to exercise patience

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

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Perhaps the most important Black
leader of the post Reconstruction

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19th century was Booker T Washington.

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

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

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

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

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approach of seeking only incremental
change and perhaps more detrimentally,

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

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Washington, for example,
spoke at the International

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Exposition in Atlanta in 1895.

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

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public audience in the American South.

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

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and it was incredibly well received.

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

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a white audience in the American South!

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I mean, this was unheard of.

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

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

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

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

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So this was his compromise.

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

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

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

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

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After all, White America had
showed it charity by helping

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fund its vocational schools.

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

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

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

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

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things essential to mutual progress.'

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Now, White America loved
Booker T Washington.

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

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

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an alternative discourse had emerged
in the Black American community,

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with views on social justice that
contrasted entirely with this

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kind of Accommodationist approach.

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

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

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

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largely as a fairly radical organization.

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

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

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strand to the race discourse.

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

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NAACP that runs for many decades.

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

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occasions throughout his travels,
including a major address at

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Howard University, the predominant
Black intellectual institution.

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

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audiences, proved to be monumental.

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

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00:23:18,300 --> 00:23:23,970
becomes hugely influential in shaping the,
the worldview of the Black intelligentsia.

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But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

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That's all ground we're gonna cover

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in our next two episodes.

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

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

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spoke to when he arrived here in 1912.

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

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00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:05,495
next century before African-Americans
had anything like, real rights. Racism

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00:24:05,495 --> 00:24:13,145
was rampant and Black America was truly
disempowered. And it's in this climate

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00:24:13,145 --> 00:24:18,245
that Abdul-Baha arrives and begins engaging
with the race discourse in America.

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

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00:24:24,629 --> 00:24:30,419
hear Abdul-Baha speak in the first place, and
we'll briefly explore what He talked

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00:24:30,419 --> 00:24:34,409
about concerning race in His talks and
in His presentations throughout America.

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And then in the third episode
of the sequence will explore

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00:24:39,360 --> 00:24:41,310
the impact this all had.

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

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00:24:48,165 --> 00:24:53,595
and remember to tune in next time when
we continue our discussion by exploring

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Abdul-Baha's message on race unity.

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That's next time on Society Builders

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

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00:25:07,085 --> 00:25:12,365
better day. A united approach to building a new society.

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00:25:13,115 --> 00:25:15,605
There's a crisis facing in humanity.

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00:25:15,605 --> 00:25:17,675
People suffer from a lack of unity.

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00:25:18,260 --> 00:25:23,520
It's time for a brand new path to a new society. Join the conversation, for social transformation.  Society Builders.

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00:25:43,260 --> 00:25:48,510
So engage with your local communities
and explore all the exciting possibilities.

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00:25:48,750 --> 00:25:55,500
We can elevate the atmosphere in
which we move. The paradigm is shifting.

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00:25:56,010 --> 00:25:57,690
It's so very uplifting.

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00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:02,580
It's a new beat, a new song, a brand new groove.

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00:26:06,030 --> 00:26:07,440
Join the conversation, for social transformation. 

335
00:26:16,110 --> 00:26:17,820
Society Builders.

336
00:26:23,570 --> 00:26:26,330
The Baha'i Faith has a lot to say,

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00:26:26,360 --> 00:26:31,939
helping people discover a better way,
with discourse and social action framed by unity.

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00:26:33,889 --> 00:26:37,669
Now the time has come to lift our game,
 and apply the teachings of 

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00:26:37,669 --> 00:26:40,970
the Greatest Name, and rise to meet the glory of our destiny.  Join the conversation, for social transformation. Society Builders