JOHN - BLACK PANTHER, KKK, AND BAHA'I

Excerpt from COLORS OF MY WORLD (see Aug 31,2010)

1970

Moving to Henderson, NC, after coming back from Trinidad was an attempt to assist a growing number of youth who had become Baha'is and there was only one adult.  The intriguing part of this move was that all these new Baha'i youth and the adult were African American.  My son and I were the only whites.  Our arrival was too spontaneous to have secured housing so we stayed in the back of  a one room building, which had been rented as a center for the Baha'i youth activities.  We camped out on the floor and I began a search for a job and a place to live.  Both came quickly. The job was in the office of a garment factory.  It was pretty boring but easy to do.  One advantage was the easy access to materials to make clothes.  Since I was taller than average I pretty much made all my clothes, and employees were allowed to get large remnants from the factory floor to take home.  The disadvantage of this place was my allergy to the sizing used in preparing clothes for packaging and selling.  My eyes watered and crusted and my skin itched but it put food on the table and a roof over our heads.

One powerful story of that time was about a young man, fifteen years old, who lived in poverty with his mother and worked to keep food on their table while going to school.  John had been involved with the Black Panther movement (radically aggressive protesters of rights violations) and was very bitter and strident.  When he heard of the Baha'i Faith he fell in love with the teachings of oneness and peace.  He studied alone and very intensely, as much as he could, the teachings and became a beautiful example of transformation.  He and I were sitting in the small rented center talking one day and noticed out the window that a telephone lineman had put his extension basket, which lifted him high, at the window of the center to watch us.  I don't know why unless he thought we were up to something.  So John and I went outside and sat on the steps to talk just to kill any rumor of impropriety.

On a teaching trip to South Carolina the local  Baha'is rented an American Legion Hut for our gathering to have prayers and plan activities.  We didn't know at the time that the building was owned by the KKK and they didn't know who we were and what we stood for.  When they found out they came into the building at the back with very angry remarks and the first person they approached was John.  We didn't know what his reaction would be but it was beautiful.  After hearing their rude and insulting remarks he just smiled and said,
"But I can love you".  The Klan member who was shouting at him stopped, stared, then broke down and cried.  Before the evening was over he had become a Baha'i and was asking us to go with him and tell his family about our beliefs.