Leslie Pinckney Hill

Leslie Pinckney Hill

Leslie Pinckney Hill (14 May 1880 – 15 February 1960) is mostly known as the leader of what grew to be Cheyney University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the 1920s, and after, Hill was enthusiastically involved with the Bahá'í Faith.

Early stirrings

Hill's known connections with Bahá’ís go back at least to visits by Louis Gregory in 1912. At the time Hill was teaching at the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth in Virginia and Gregory spoke before Hill's class twice - first on his trip to the Holy Land and secondly on the theme of universal brotherhood. In 1915 Hill wrote a paper for the The Journal of Race Development mentioning the progressive integrative views and practices of Bahá’ís, and by 1924 was taking part in a Bahá’í co-sponsored Race Amity Convention in Philadelphia. The other co-sponsor was the local Quaker community, which was also a founding and long-lived sponsor of Cheyney.

In light of the developing relationship one can speculate on earlier connections. In February 10, 1905, The New York Press, reported that "Harvard Alumni (were) aghast" on page 1 when Professor William James (1842-1910) had invited Bahá'í Ali Kuli Khan to hold meetings on campus and that alumni would surely pressure James to stop him teaching the religion on campus. James was a favorite Harvard professor of Hill's, who attended 1899-1904 and wrote a eulogy for him. Additionally, after hearing of the religion in 1907 and meeting 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1912, another Harvard graduate Albert Vail reported on the religion in the July 1914 edition of The Harvard Theological Review Vail published an article surveying the religion. It is possible Hill encountered the article; Hill's 1915 article does not say where he got his information.

Explosion of action

1925

In April 1925 Hill spoke at a public meeting during the National Bahá’í Convention which elected the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís for the United States (NSA) in its modern form. In Louis Gregory’s coverage in Baha’i News he said "If I were to speak out of my heart, he said in part which I want the privilege of doing… He paid an eloquent tribute to Jesus of Nazareth, Baha'u'llah, and Abdu'l-Baha." In earlier July Hill was in the 2nd day of the fifth Race Amity Convention this time held in Green Acre Bahá’í School. Harlan Ober’s record of Hill’s presentation mentions him being moved by the unity at the Bahá’í convention and now at Green Acre compared to the racism in the general society. He noted the mutual cooperation of Bahá’ís during the (first) World War and saw the need of cooperation as the next steps for society - “with true eloquence, and the exaltation of yearning, he made a most stirring appeal for cooperation and for the establishment of the new brotherhood” and the audience responded strongly. Hill then attended a National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools meeting in Durham, North Carolina, and asked the National Assembly to send a speaker - Keith Ransom-Kehler, who had chaired the Green Acre session Hill had just participated in, was sent, and in a quote from his letter of thanks said “I want you to know how deeply grateful I am that the N. S. A. decided to send Mrs. Keith Ransom-Kehler to Durham …. She was heard not only by the colored teachers in attendance but by the United States Commissioner of Education and a number of white superintendents, … I believe that she created many centers of influence from which the light and truth will spread." This was in late July.

1926

In November 1926 the US Bahá'í National Assembly assembled a small group of avowed Bahá´ís which included Hill and others, Louis Gregory, Agnes Parsons, and Alain Locke, in a special consultation on the progress of the subject of race unity. It is on the basis of this meeting that Bahá'í sources specifically date his status as an avowed Bahá'í, as well as one non-Bahá'í source.

1927

In February 1927 Hill appeared at the opening of a new Bahá’í Center in New York in the evening. His subject was “the spirit that sustains ideals”. Alfred E. Lunt and Hill, both graduates of Harvard, reunited at the Green Acre Race Amity meeting in July. Hill’s talk was entitled “The New Negro”. Gregory noted Hill and Lunt “Due to their common faith in Bahá’u’lláh which each expressed in his own way, their friendship was more than personal, more than sectional…. So the black man with the grasp of a statesman and the vision of a seer, could present a survey of the world with no trace of bitterness, commending his own group to a program of high hopefulness through his faith in the eternal verities….”

Hill participated in the next Bahá’í Race Amity Conventions in DC, one of six in the country that year. Other presenters included Coralie Cook and Mordecai W. Johnson. The national inter-racial amity committee of the Bahá’ís circulated a letter on the broad scope of the work. A summary of the event by Locke was printed in Star of the West where he hailed it “as the most successful (of the year) … its discussion of issues…came to more practical grips with the problems of race relationships than ever before.” Mordecai’s talk wrestled with how prejudice can come from “our devotion to our ideals and from the zeal and enthusiasm with which we have set out to conquer the world for the things we have thought were right.… the good impulse gone wrong.… The conquest of prejudice was thus the crusade for a spiritual radicalism which would place moral consistency above social conformity and be willing to concede to all minorities, as indeed to all individuals, the right of self-expression, self-determination, and self-appraisal.” Hill’s own talk Locke commented on as “Getting on together” focused on the non-retaliative social spirit of black America, their involvement in the arts and moral life in society “waiting to be met and understood by the enlightened conscience of his fellow citizens." Immediately after the convention, Hill contributed a talk at the Wilmington, Delaware, meeting organized by their International and Interracial Goodwill committee just before Thanksgiving.

1928 - 1931

By late January 1928 it was announced Hill was chair of an civic Inter-racial Peace Committee and spoke at one of a series of sessions in a Wilmington, Delaware, at an AME Church. His talk was titled "Peace! The Essential Negro Progress” and held shortly before the large Armstrong Association meeting held in Philadelphia at which Hill added a talk of his own near mid-February. Some of his speech was quoted, starting “We should educate and interest our children in Negro History, pointing out to them the men and women of achievement in our race so that there might be some incentive and inspiration for them to attain similar heights of greatness and achievement." A week later Hill was back at Cheyney for the interracial gala unveiling of a bust of abolitionist and newspaper reporter John Milholland and one of the founders of the NAACP. Race relations meetings began in early April in Pittsburgh to which Hill contributed. Gregory was at Cheyney sometime after around October-November 1928.

In 1928 and 1930 there was no Race Amity meetings, but in August 1929 the Race Amity Convention was held at Green Acre. Gregory’s report, later published in Bahá'í World volume 3, noted Hill opened it thanking the workers at Green Acre, contrasted the service of those alive and dead compared to the work of tyranny ravaging lives, praised the use of tact, and the spread of more books about race relations and organizations along these lines. He commented that blacks were encouraged by the progress so much that communism and violence were minimized among them and also the spreading influence of art and literature from black people and in reference to the meaning of his book of poetry, to make of oppression wings to fly towards heaven. Then in March 1, 1931, Hill gave a talk at the New York Bahá’í Center, followed a couple days later by Hill giving a talk at an observance of the death of Crispus Attucks. Hill was back in mid-March to take part in a series of race amity meetings in the NY Baha’i Center co-sponsored by the Urban League.

Alain Locke wrote a critical comment about Hill in his acceptance of joining the Race Unity Committee written to Gregory June 6, 1931: "I wish… could be persuaded to come to Green Acre… his temperament is rather acid as you know… although his is first and last a truth-seeker - and I would rather have this element even with some irritation than the deceptive platitudes of some of our friends, including even Dr. Leslie P. Hill. Please accept these reactions as constructively meant…."

Martha Root spoke at Cheyney and other area universities - Swarthmore College, Haverford College, and Temple University - around late 1931/early 1932.

Later years

As Cheyney Normal School became Cheyney College and prepared to become Cheyney University, and in the face of not only being school president and the campus' renovations but the fundraising in the face of the Great Depression, Hill’s appearances at Bahá’í events became more spread out but continued late into his life. There are two connections beyond his own to mention. One is that Amy Bailey joined or encountered the religion around the time she attended Cheyney in 1935-6 and was an avowed Bahá'í in 1936 when she went home to Providence, Rhode Island. The other is a reported comment of Evangeline King, Cheyney Librarian, in Baha’i News in 1941: “Personally I am deeply interested in the Baha’i teachings and you may be sure I shall try to capture the interest of others. I should say that nothing could be more timely for us than this clear pure gospel.” However there is no record in the National Bahá'í Archives she officially joined the religion. On the other hand it should be noted the first community of Bahá'ís in West Chester, the civic community hosting Cheyney, has so far been dated only back to 1941-2, so before then there appears to be no community of Bahá'ís for Hill to be a part of locally.

In 1942 Hill sent a letter of regret he could not participate in the Green Acre race unity meeting in 1942, though in mid-December 1943 Hill spoke at the New York Bahá'í Center with the topic “Rebuilding our Future”. In 1947 Hill gave a talk on a familiar Bahá'í theme of "One World", also referred to in a more Christian-phrase of the "gospel of love", followed by one on "intercultural solidarity". It wasn't until 1950 that Hill spoke at the local Philadelphia Bahá’í community observance of the Martyrdom of the Báb. Hill gave a talk as part of a series of presentations by Bahá'ís for Brotherhood Week in February 1955 in New York, and was part of the community race unity meeting in the city in June in which there was a comment that he "… often invited Baha’is to speak at his college in years past." Hill died in 1960.

Further reading

Hill's life and action as a Bahá'í has not been documented in light of his faith and action, save that his actions are relatively well documented:

• James G Fleming; Christian E Burckel (1950). "Hill, Leslie Pinckney". Who's who in colored America : an illustrated biographical dictionary of notable libing persons of African descent in the United States. Black biographical dictionaries, 1790-1950, no. 287 (7th ed.). Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Christian E. Burckel & Associates. p. 262. OCLC 28976696.

• Charline Fay Howard Conyers (1960). A history of the Cheyney State Teachers College, 1837-1951 (EdD). New York University. OCLC 1705489.

• Sulayman Clark (June 1984). The educational philosophy of Leslie Pinkney Hill - a profile in black educational leadership, 1904-1951 (EdD). Harvard.

• Charline Howard Conyers (1 Jan 1990). A Living Legend- The History of Cheyney University, 1837-1951. Philadelphia, PA: Cheyney University Press. ISBN 978-0-9625828-0-6. OCLC 21330794.

• Laura A. Peake (1995). The Manassas Industrial School for colored youth 1894-1916 (MA). American Studies, College of Willam and Mary. OCLC 34540229.