Race and Man

Race and Man, the first widely circulated Bahá'í compilation on the issue of race, was gathered by Maye Harvey Gift (1885-1961) and Alice Simmons Cox (1903? - 1985?) starting in the mid-1930s. A listing of the references was extended and published in World Order magazine in 1942 and then was reformulated and extended to be part of a book together with a summary of scientific evidence about the idea of race in a volume entitled Race and Man. This was revised and republished a number of times into the 1950s and the last edition was published in 1956. Praised in some African American press, a copy of this made its way into Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's personal library by 1963. However it was allowed to go out of print, a summary of it was printed as a pamphlet, and it would be some two decades before an attempt was made at a compilation on the issue of race again. That new work was based on the effort of Bonnie J. Taylor commissioned by the US National Assembly in 1980 and used first in a Most Challenging Issue Seminar sponsored by the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Wilmette, Illinois, in 1982, following which it was published as Power of Unity. A successor text was published in 1995 entitled The Pupil of the Eye: African Americans in the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh and most recently in 2019 as The Power of Unity: overcoming racial divisions, rebuilding America.

Compilation that evolved to be Race and Man

In 1921 Star of the West carried a compilation "The removal of race prejudice" in two parts in June. In 1925 a compilation "Racial Amity" was published. A new and seemingly separate work, a "Compilation on Racial Amity", was compiled, and approved by review, by Maye Harvey Gift and Alice Simmons Cox, white Bahá'ís, in 1935. This followed an impulse in the work of race amity in the religion which started in 1931 with a comment of Shoghi Effendi's during a pilgrimage.

Compilers

Main article: Maye Harvey Gift

Maye Harvey Gift, (1885 - 1961) was born and raised in Illinois. She graduated High School in Urbana, attended the University of Illinois in Champaign, and gained an advanced professional degree in philanthropic work before serving communities in that work several years. Along the way she was active in society and Methodist conferences to which she as a delegate. She met John Wilson Gift, the first Bahá'í of Peoria, and joined the religion herself. It was a May-December marriage - he was 77 and she was 32 when they married. Maye was his second wife. They lived together as a couple several years and the year he died in 1927 the community elected its first Spiritual Assembly. After his death Maye became visible in race issues in the early 1930s: first giving several courses on the teachings of the religion on the oneness of humanity specifically on the issue of race at Louhelen Bahá'í School in its first organized year, and then on co-producing the first widely published compilation on the issue of race in the American Bahá'í community with Alice Simmons Cox.

Main article: Alice Simmons Cox

Alice Simmons Cox (~1903 - ~1985) was born and raised in Illinois. She graduated summa cum laude at Lombard College in 1924, which later merged with Knox College, and married Levi Cox. The couple moved to Peoria and by 1931 Alice was visible publishing poetry in Star of the West magazine. Alice co-produced the compilation with Maye Harvey Gift and, in addition to numerous other articles on other themes, produced a newspaper article series published in a number of African American newspapers on the Faith and race issues.

Citations on race unity compiled

In 1942 an update of the Gift-Cox compilation was published in World Order magazine. The citations mentioned are:

1. Former Prophets indicated men are brothers under one God. (Read PUP 95-96, 293; ASM 51.)
   1. Jewish, Mai 2:10; Deut 6:4; Gen 1-5 (creation).
   2. Christian, John 10:16; Acts 17:24, 26.
   3. Islamic, Qur'an 2:209, 158 (Rodwell pp. 360, 355; Sale 29,23); 10:20 (Rodwell pp. 276-7; Sale 201).
2. Bahá’í Message proclaims oneness of mankind, PUP 62-63; WOB 42-44, 47, 202-3; BNE 96, 57-58, 196-8.
   1. All men created in image of God, Gl 65, 177-9; PUP 66-67, 256-7, 329-30, 398; A D J 31-32.
   2. Certain human differences do exist.
      1. Color variations not important.
         1. Color sole point of racial difference, PUP 64-65.
         2. Color not cause of strife in nature, PUP 42, 54.
         3. Man originated race distinctions, PUP 227, 281, 293.
         4. Color not cause for distinction in Kingdom of God, PUP 41-42, 420-1, 109; ADJ 31-32.
      2. Diversity should be cause of love, harmony, beauty, PUP 42, 422; WOB 41-42; ADJ 31, 32.
      3. Capacities and character only true distinction, Gl 187 (184-8); PUP 22, 67, 422-3; Wisdom 138; SAQ 247-51.
   3. Human unity to be manifest in World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, WOB 39, 41, 203-6.
3. Grave Importance of Modern Race Problems.
   1. All race prejudice harmful, PUP 293, 310, 281; PD 117.
   2. Colored-white enmity critical.
      1. Threatens strife, ADJ 33.
      2. Unity would assure world’s peace, PUP 43 (ADJ 33).
   3. Necessity of race unity for welfare, peace, Gl 96, 286; 259.
4. Bahá'í Solution for Race Problems: Human Unity.
   1. Spiritual power needed, Gl 254-5; PUP 65; ADJ 33.
      1. Holy Spirit (Word) overcomes limitations, PUP 2-5, 315, 244-5; ASM 17-18; ADJ 45-46.
      2. Bahá'u'lláh brings unifying power of Spirit, Gl 103, 95-96,203, 286; PUP 158-9, 101, 197; WOB 197-8; PD 118.
      3. Spiritualization of masses essential, PD 128.
   2. Courageous action commanded.
      1. Bahá'u'lláh calls to love, fellowship, Gl 333, 217, 288.
      2. 'Abdu’l-Bahá explains responsibilities, PUP 42-43, 54, 374, 65-66, 108-9; ADJ 30-33; Wisdom 128-9.
   3. Further suffering necessary, WOB 193-4, 201-2; PD 119- 121.
   4. Bahá'u'lláh’s Divine Economy essential, WOB 19-20.
5. Guardian calls for vigorous action in America.
   1. States race problem most challenging issue, ADJ 28.
      1. Obligation to eliminate prejudice, ADJ 28-30.
      2. New principle of minority treatment, ADJ 29-30.
      3. Example set by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, ADJ 28-29; BA 119.
   2. Declares deeds must reveal freedom from prejudice.
      1. “Hall-mark,” BA 120; “Watchword,” ADJ 30; “Keynote,” ADJ 30.
      2. Enhance growth of Cause, BA 119-120; ADJ 28-29.
      3. Responsibility for both races, ADJ 28, 30, 33-34, 45; BA 120-1.
   3. Urges enrollment from specific races, ADJ 45-46.

Further work

It is with belief in the essential and indestructible oneness of the human race, and with confidence that the age of trial and deci­sion through which the world is passing is a prelude to a universal era of brotherhood in all human affairs, that this compilation has been prepared.

For the anticipatory year of 1943, before the Centenary of the Declaration of the Báb, also a year of three race riots in America, plans were announced to expand the compilation and to include scientific views about race. The compilation was redone by Gift and Cox and published as Race and Man in November. It arrived following a campaign by Bahá'ís of three months of nearly five dozen local "race unity" themed events across the country, after the Race Amity Convention in Green Acre. There was publicity of the new compilation in the fall to winter of 1943 in several newspapers. This edition was republished in 1946, and 1956, when it was reviewed by the Associated Negro Press; Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a copy of this last edition in his library by 1963.

Meanwhile Cox wrote a series of articles from November 1942 to April 1943 usually in the African-American The New York Age but also in the Pittsburg Courier and other newspapers about Bahá'í views of the race issue. In 1944 the national Race Unity committee included the compilation in their list of major achievements of the year.

New Compilation

The compilation and commentary Race and Man text was followed by a pamphlet based on it, though these were then allowed to go out of print in the later 1950s. It wasn’t until 1986 that a successor work was published. According to the Forward, the new compilation was based on Bonnie J. Taylor’s personal work and not directly based on Race and Man. Power of Unity was commissioned by the National Assembly in 1980 and solicited the Universal House of Justice for more quotes. It was “ascertained that Race and Man was not suitable for reprinting”. Taylor’s work was used for a Most Challenging Issue Seminar sponsor by the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Wilmette, Illinois in 1982. The result was called more comprehensive, “address(ing) not only the serious matter of racial prejudice but also the broader issue of unity itself.” According to the forward, “no new materials on the subject of race unity have been published in the United States Bahá'í community since the national focus on race relations in the 1960s.” Meanwhile the community had grown to be 1/3rd rural black thanks to events in South Carolina and other places and a significant percentage of other minorities had joined the Faith especially from the 1960s. “The National Race Unity Committee has found that the most creative and successful efforts to integrate racial and cultural diversity have come from Bahá'ís who are the most deepened in their understanding of the process of unity and the most aware that achieving unity is above all a spiritual rather than a cultural issue.” Selections from the text have been posted online. It was used in reviews of race issues. It continues to be published. Taylor also wrote a successor The Pupil of the Eye: African Americans in the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh in 1995. A pre-publication version adjusted to suite the published 1998 edition was posted online. In 1998 Taylor contributed a workshop "Origin and Fallacies of White Superiority Attitudes" at the 1998 3rd National Conference on Whiteness at University of Chicago.

Taylor began working at Health for Humanity, an innovator in community development programs in 1995 and served for 12 years and then after a break returned to Health for Humanity in 2013. Taylor has also had other interests. In 1989 Taylor wrote a review of Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists, edited by Ken Wilber. In 2013 Taylor wrote One Reality: the Harmony of Science and Religion.