Abstract

This chapter provides a brief sketch of the African American Bahá’í community as a case study to explore the larger Bahá’í principle of unity in diversity. It recounts the ways in which the American Bahá’í community in general has interacted with the descendants of enslaved peoples over time while highlighting the contributions of African American Bahá’ís to the overall development of both the Bahá’í Faith and American society more broadly. In the end, it argues that the US Bahá’í community has been boldly and consistently challenging American racism and began doing so at a time when most other religious and secular organizations were not. The implication here is that through the activism of African American Bahá’ís, the principles of the Bahá’í Faith found expression within American civic society long before ideas like unity in diversity enjoyed a broad public acceptance.