Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Cedar Rapids
City in the United States
Location of Cedar Rapids
History: Firsts
-	Local Assembly	1943
How to contact:
-	Phone	(319) 423-9932
-	Email	https://crbahais.org/contact-us
-	Address	PO Box 2298, Cedar Rapids, IA, 52406
Official Website		https://crbahais.org/
Related media

Cedar Rapids is the second largest city of the U.S. state of Iowa and the county seat of Linn County. Its Local Spiritual Assembly was the first established in Iowa.

History

The Faith was mentioned in a local Cedar Rapids paper in 1902 in a report of the New York Assembly being incorporated.

Perhaps the earliest Bahá'í activity near Cedar Rapids was conducted by Gayle Woolson, who spoke on the Faith at various organizations in five towns near Cedar Rapids in late 1938 on a teaching trip to Iowa, and at a Waltonian meeting in the city itself. After her visit a local Lutheran minister gave a talk criticizing the Faith.

In November 1939 she returned to Cedar Rapids with Marvin Newport, a New York Bahá'í, and they spent time speaking at clubs and schools and establishing contacts. Gayle pioneered to Latin America shortly after the visit, but Marvin remained in Cedar Rapids to consolidate the teaching work until April 1940. He conducted twenty-six Bahá’í classes, spoke on the Faith to seventeen groups, and distributed Bahá’í literature to three hundred people in his six months in the city.

Local Spiritual Assembly of Cedar Rapids, 1949.

Ruth Moffett visited Cedar Rapids and other Iowan cities to teach in May and June 1941, having been directed to focus on teaching in Iowa by Shoghi Effendi. Annie Romer pioneered to Iowa for a few months in 1942, and taught the Faith in Cedar Rapids, as well as Waterloo and Davenport. The Faith achieved a breakthrough in Cedar Rapids when Mable Ives visited to teach in September 1942, with fourteen people declaring while she was there. Carl Scheffler and Dorothy Baker spoke at the Montrose Hotel in Cedar Rapids in November 1942. The Local Spiritual Assembly of Cedar Rapids was established in 1943, making it the first Local Assembly of Iowa. Ruth Moffett gave another series of lectures in Cedar Rapids in 1943. In 1944 the Bahá’í Centenary was announced in news broadcasts on local radio. Dr. Edris Rice-Wray visited Cedar Rapids in Autumn of 1944 at the suggestion of the National Teaching Committee. By 1947 the Cedar Rapids Bahá’í community had a Bahá’í Center and Bahá’í Library on Second Avenue. The Cedar Rapids Assembly was incorporated in 1949, with the certification being valid until 1999.

As of 1950 there was a weekly Bahá’í meeting for the public held in Cedar Rapids, which was suspended only for the election of the Local Assembly. In 1951 the Iowa state Bahá’í Convention held to elect a delegate for the National Convention was held in the Cedar Rapids Bahá’í Library and reported in a local paper. In 1953 Ruth Moffett visited Cedar Rapids spoke to speak on the Faith again. She was interviewed by the Cedar Rapids Gazette during this visit. In 1954 Margery McCormick, of the National Spiritual Assembly, visited Cedar Rapids and gave a talk titled Christian Hope is Bahá’í Conviction. In 1954 Dr. Marcus Bach, a non-Bahá’í academic who taught religion at the University of Iowa, gave a talk in Cedar Rapids in which he spoke about audiences he had with religious figures, including Shoghi Effendi in Haifa, and Pope Pius XII in Rome.

In 1956 Ruth Moffett made yet another teaching trip to Cedar Rapids, and Florence Mayberry also visited and spoke on the Faith the same year. In 1957 the American National Teaching Committee called on the Bahá’í community to support Cedar Rapids, as its community was in danger of losing its Assembly, and a Winston Evans of Tennessee held a public meeting to proclaim the Faith in October 1957. Dr. Marcus Bach gave a presentation on the Faith on a local television station in Cedar Rapids in 1957. As of January 1958 the Cedar Rapids Bahá’ís were holding meetings every Tuesday evening at the Bahá’í Center, which had relocated to Ridgewood Terrace by that time. In May 1958 Ted Cardell, a pioneer returning from Africa, spoke on the Faith in Cedar Rapids. Regular Bahá’í meetings for the public continued to be held at the Bahá’í Center throughout the late 1950's and early 1960's.

In 1966 a near full page article on the religion was published in a local Cedar Rapids paper, due to paper seeking to cover local religious groups. Also in 1966 a presentation on the Faith was made to a YWCA group in Cedar Rapids. In March 1967 Iowa gave Local Spiritual Assemblies the authority to have a representative perform legal marriage ceremonies, and what was possibly the first entirely Bahá’í marriage ceremony in Cedar Rapids took place on October 1, 1967. Winston Evans visited Cedar Rapids and spoke on the Faith, and also had an interview taped and broadcast on WMT-TV during his visit.

In 1975 the Cedar Rapids Bahá’ís held a screening of a film on the Faith titled Have You Heard the News My Friend?. In 1976 the Cedar Rapids Bahá’ís displayed an exhibit in English and Spanish on the Equality of Men and Women at an Ethnic Fair held at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. As of 1979 there were thirty-five Bahá’ís in Cedar Rapids, and that year an article about the community was published, covering concerns the community had for the Bahá’ís of Iran due to the revolution there. As of 1979 the Cedar Rapids Bahá’í Center had been moved from Ridgewood Terrace to B Avenue.

The persecution of the Bahá’í community of Iran received coverage in local Cedar Rapids papers in the early 1980's. In 1985 Hugh Chance, then a member of the Universal House of Justice, visited Cedar Rapids and gave a talk at Kirkwood Community College. In 1986 Bahá’ís were invited to participate in an Thanksgiving ecumenical service at the Cedar Rapids People's Church along with several Christian denominations. In 1989 a profile of local Cedar Rapids Bahá’í Marguerite Ashlock was published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Local Bahá’ís held firesides in Cedar Rapids in the 1990's, and Bahá’í Holy Day celebrations received coverage in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. In 1999 a Bahá’í Speaker Forum was held in Cedar Rapids, in connection with International Women's Day.

In 2000 Rodney Clarken, of the School of Education of Northern Michigan University held two series of talks on the Faith in Cedar Rapids, with prayers and Christian/Bahá’í dialogue taking place. In 2008 the Local Assembly of Cedar Rapids held an event to honor seven locals who had assisted in recovery during flooding of the Cedar River. By 2009 the community had a Bahá’í Information Center on First Avenue.

In 2018 the Cedar Rapids Local Spiritual Assembly organized a free screening of the film The Gate.