Bahá’í Publishing 401 Greenleaf Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844 Copyright © 2015 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States All rights reserved. Published 2015 Printed in the United States of American on acid-free paper ∞ 181716154321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ruhe-Schoen, Janet. Champions of oneness : Louis Gregory and his shining circle / by Janet RuheSchoen. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-61851-081-5 1. Bahais—United States--Biography. 2. Bahai Faith—United States— History—20th century. 3. Gregory, Louis G. I. Title. BP390.R836 2015 297.9’3092273—dc23 [B] 2015000342
Cover design by Misha Maynerick Blaise Book design by Patrick Falso
In memory of my sister artist Barbara Stephens, who carried oneness in her heart; and dedicated as ever to my family, particularly my incomparable Christopher.
When shall a few of us go to seek our kindred, Riding intrepidly over the white crested waves With our garlands of greeting? —Doris McKay
Contents Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi 1 / Heritage: The Concept of Oneness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 / In Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3 / An American Childhood and Young Manhood. . . . . . . 25 4 / Amity: Meeting the Other American Tradition. . . . . . . 41 with Pauline Hannen, Mírzá Abu’l-Fa¤l, Ali Kuli Khan
5 / Persian Prince of Amity: Mírzá Abu’l-Fa¤l. . . . . . . . . . . 47 6 / Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 with Paul K. Dealy, Lua Getsinger, Pauline and Joseph Hannen, Phoebe Hearst, Robert Turner
7 / And to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 with Edith Chapman, Pocahantas Pope, Harriet GibbsMarshall, Amalie Knobloch, Coralie Cook, George Cook
8 / Happiness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 with Louisa Mathew, Mírzá Abu’l-Fa¤l, Ghodsea Ashraf
9 / Planting the World-Tree in the U.S.A.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 with Louisa Gregory, Edith Sanderson, Agnes Parsons, Robert Abbott and others
10 / A Marriage of Equals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 11 / The Di¹cult Part of Peacemaker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 with Hallie Queen, the Martins, Mírzá Abu’l-Fa¤l, Coralie Cook, Roy Williams
12 / Into the Maw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 with Roy Williams, James Elmore Hays, James Oakshette, George Henderson, Zia Bagdadi, Sadie and Mabry Oglesby
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13 / Sir Happy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 14 / Red Summer, Rough Ground. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 with Sadie and Mabry Oglesby, Agnes Parsons, Roy Williams
15 / The First Race Amity Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 with Agnes Parsons, Louise Boyle and family, Joseph Hannen, Lucy Diggs Slowe
16 / Pure Gold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 17 / Heritage: Doris and Willard McKay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 with Howard and Mabel Ives, Dorothy Baker, Grace and Harlan Ober, Louis Gregory, May Maxwell, Martha Root, Professor George Henderson, and others
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
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Acknowledgments Thank you to Cap Cornwell and Fares Behmardi at Palabra Publications for suggesting this project and patiently awaiting its completion; to the U.S. Bahá’í Publishing Trust for taking it on subsequently; to Lewis Walker at the National Bahá’í Archives of the United States and Baher Seioshansian at the Bahá’í Archives of Washington, DC for their thorough e¹ciency and goodwill; to the wonderfully supportive, open-hearted Bahá’ís of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; and especially to Louise Mould, Pat and Vivian O’Neill, Bob and Shirley Donnelly, Paul Vreeland, Anne Boyles, and Louis Pollard. Thank you also to Patti Tomarelli, Judy Hannen Moe, Anneke Schouten-Buys, Anthony Lee, Claire Vreeland, and Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis for unstintingly sharing information, unpublished manuscripts, and taped interviews even though much couldn’t be incorporated in the ³nal manuscript. And thank you to diverse groups at Green Acre Bahá’í School, Desert Rose Bahá’í Institute, the Maritimes Bahá’í Summer School, the New York City Bahá’í Center, and my home region in New York State for listening to readings from the manuscript-in-progress with such love, empathy, and enthusiasm, and for providing invaluable encouragement.
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Heritage: The Concept of Oneness . . . The concept of oneness, a concept to be loved as a reality, for itself . . . —Doris McKay My friends and I sit or sprawl on the living room ·oor and on assorted pieces of furniture in the home of two aged ladies in Brattleboro, Vermont. The ladies are our teachers, for we’re new members of the Bahá’í Faith (and interested pals), and they are veteran Bahá’ís. The ladies aren’t so very old, perhaps. But it’s 1968, we’re ·ower children, and they’re de³nitely a long way over thirty. Being young at heart and thrilled to have guests, they’re gracious, nondemanding teachers who don’t seem at all worried about their spindly-legged, splay-footed furniture or hand-tatted doilies. We play our guitars, recorders, kazoos, ·utes, harmonicas, spoons, drums; we sing, laugh, sip tea, munch Lorna Doones and Fig Newtons, debate world peace, race relations, the existence (or not) of God, and whether (or not) religion is good for anything. Our hostesses bring on the chocolate-covered graham crackers and keep us talking. But eventually I separate myself out and sit on the rug by the bookshelves, paging through volumes of a certain encyclopedia— The Bahá’í World—doting on the “In Memoriams.” The obituaries. Reading up on the dead. That’s not as lugubrious as it sounds. These particular dead led venturesome lives of travel in places I’ve never heard of and had lives full of the kinds of heroic quests, sacri³ces, services, epiphanies, and personal miracles I’ve always longed for. From a vantage point of color TV, psychedelia, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and His Satanic Majesty’s Request, my new-
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Champions of Oneness: Louis Gregory and His Shining Circle
found heroes from the ³rst half of the twentieth century mostly look plain, dowdy, and doddering in their grainy black-and-white “In Memoriam” photos. But to me, despite my Twiggy eyeliner and my Janis Joplin boas, beads, and plumed hats, they’re the princesses and princes of fairy tales. They risked all, wandered their dark nights of the soul in realms of mystery and monsters, to ³nd their destined light and live by it forever. The ones that fascinate me most actually met Abbas E²endi, called the Master by His Father. However, Abbas E²endi preferred the title ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, which means Servant of Glory. While His Father was alive, He was prince regent serving Bahá’u’lláh, whose name means the Glory of God. Bahá’u’lláh was the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith. After He died in 1892, His followers learned from His Will and Testament that they were to turn to the Master as their authority, the only interpreter and elucidator of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings. Obeying this ordinance, the Bahá’ís stayed united. Through harsh battles pitting spirit against the ogres and dragons of ego, they avoided the fate of preceding religions—that is, becoming divided into splinter groups and sects. For my heroes, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the king enthroned at the heart of the mystery, the warmth in the ice cave, the blue light of love within the ·ame. “So He is for me,” I decide. Servant of Glory. Servant-as-king. I’ve read and reread those popular books of quest, The Journey to the East and The Prophet, seeking someone like the Master, but I was always disappointed in the end. Ordinary writers, trying to explicate mystery, seem to only diminish and annihilate it. But from what I know of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, nothing diminished Him in life, and now His memory and heritage keep growing stronger. No wonder another of His titles is the Mystery of God. If only I’d lived while He was alive. In 1912, He was actually in the United States, spent nine months traveling from coast to coast, with words and example inspiring people to envision universal oneness and live/act in its spirit. What if I’d been on the dock in New
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Heritage: The Concept of Oneness
York City, watching His ship come in? What if I’d followed Him to Washington, DC and Boston? Or what if I’d been unaware of Him until I suddenly saw him on a street in Chicago, or in a train chugging over the mountains to California, or at a whistle-stop somewhere in Colorado? What if I’d gone to meet Him in the Holy Land? If only I’d been among the ³rst group of pilgrims from the Western world to climb the ·ight of worn stone steps to Him in His house in ‘Akká where He, having lived most of His life exiled, a prisoner in a walled city, manifested incontrovertible freedom. I’m comforted by the fact that He wrote a special prayer and said that to recite it was like meeting him face-to-face. It begins: “O God, my God! Lowly and tearful, I raise my suppliant hands to Thee and cover my face in the dust of that Threshold of Thine, exalted above the knowledge of the learned, and the praise of all that glorify Thee . . . Lord! He is a poor and lowly servant of Thine, enthralled and imploring Thee, captive in Thy hand, praying fervently to Thee, trusting in Thee, in tears before Thy face, calling to Thee and beseeching Thee, saying: O Lord, my God! Give me Thy grace to serve Thy loved ones . . .”1 Alone in my college dorm room, I recite this prayer and weep as I say it, as if to convince God of my sincerity. I haven’t yet learned to trust God. After enduring intense loneliness and trauma during childhood and youth, I conceive of God almost as an enemy or antagonist, an extremely critical male superspy. I certainly have trouble praying. I have to give up on the prayer. I’m too paranoid and self-conscious to feel the unconditional love and acceptance that people said emanated from the Master. How I want it! Instead of praying, I hungrily read descriptions of Him: He had hazel eyes that most often appeared blue, silvery hair and beard, and gestures and a smile that seemed to summon his listeners to come up, come up, be gathered in. He walked like a shepherd but also like a king. If only I’d heard His ringing laugh and resonant voice, seen Him placing coins in the hands of the homeless or sitting next to the
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In Egypt He came, a dark youth, singing in the dawn of a new freedom . . . —James D. Corrothers April 10, 1911. Louis Gregory, very tall, reed-thin, well-dressed in a three-piece suit, a handsome young African American with the presence and bearing of an actor or dancer, follows an Iranian friend down a street of gracious villas and gardens by the sea in Ramleh, Egypt. If they should try to make conversation, their words would be nearly swallowed by whooshing surf and wind. But it’s likely that Louis is quiet, for suspense and excitement belying his outer poise sweep his inmost being. I imagine his suit is light-colored for the Mediterranean weather, and soon he’ll be sipping tea on the Hotel Victoria’s wide veranda, beneath the famous, outsized clock. But now his friend opens the gate of a modest, comfortable villa and leads him through the front garden, where he leaves him for a moment at a side door to enter the house and run upstairs. He quickly returns and guides Louis to a second-story reception room where people sit conversing. Among them is the Master, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. At the sight of Him, Louis feels (he will later write) “a natural impulse” to kneel. So he does, with his singular grace, at the threshold of the room. The Master rises and goes to him, bends over him and kisses his bowed head. Louis is the second African-American Bahá’í pilgrim ever to visit ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Robert Turner, in 1898, was the ³rst; he came with the ³rst group of pilgrims from the western world to the Master’s side. Now, fourteen years later, Louis cannot know how deeply
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Champions of Oneness: Louis Gregory and His Shining Circle
happy he makes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, although, during the years of their association, the Master will intimate it, always. Two years ago, Louis requested permission to come on pilgrimage, but the Master told him to postpone the trip. Now he’s here by the Master’s express invitation. The Master seats him with the other guests in the reception room, which is, as far as Louis is concerned, heaven. The guests include all sorts of visitors, but there are a few fellow pilgrims, among them Louisa A. M. Matthew, a dainty, petite, dark-haired Englishwoman with big brown eyes and an earnest, forthright gaze. She’s an empathetic person with great concern for social justice, so, knowing the inequities of life for people of color, she likely feels happy and a¹rmed in her faith as she watches Louis interact with the Master. But she never imagines that within a year she’ll be Louis’ wife. When the Master seats Louis and asks him how he is, Louis feels it’s no routine “how are you?” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá senses not only Louis’ voyage over several seas to His side but his voyage over life’s ocean, along with the very tide and surge of the blood in his heart, the pulse of his soul. And Louis realizes that “the weariness of the long journey, the suspense and excitement of landing for the ³rst time at an Oriental port,” have vanished. He feels “more peaceful and composed” than ever before.1 This unusual psychic balance, this gift of quiet joy, comes naturally to Louis, but he hasn’t always felt it. However, from that moment in Ramleh until the end of his life, it’s one of his most distinguishing characteristics, one of his graces. Shortly after welcoming Louis, the Master has a question for him: “What of the con·ict between the white and colored races?” Louis smiles, feeling that, although ‘Abdu’l-Bahá hasn’t been in the United States, He knows more of conditions there than he, Louis, can comprehend. Louis answers that there’s much friction between the races. Bahá’ís hope for “an amicable settlement of racial di²erences,” but others are “despondent.” Even among the Bahá’ís, some are earnestly eager “for a closer unity” and hope for guidance from ‘Abdu’l-
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