Bahá'ís, friends look to 1921 in organizing Friday's Race Amity Festival

May 16—With the wounds of the "red summer" race riots still fresh in the national consciousness, American Bahá'ís turned their focus on relationships. What the country needed was friendships that stretched across racial lines, they reasoned in extending invitations to their "Convention for Amity Between the Colored and White Races Based on Heavenly Teachings" in May, 1921.

A century after participants crowded into Washington's First Congregational Church, and in a country that's still grappling with pressing issues of race and racism, that conviction remains strong in Friday's Race Amity Festival at Wildwood Metropark.

"This idea of race amity is simply a friendly relationship between people of diverse backgrounds," said Behrooz Modarai, who helped to organize the festival commemorating the centennial anniversary of the inaugural race amity convention. A member of the Bahá'í Faith, his local faith community and its friends are behind the event. "t is not a new idea, but it is a proven approach, very essential for sustaining a peaceful and civilized society."

IF YOU GO

Race Amity Festival

When: 1 to 4 p.m. Friday

Where: Wildwood Metropark's Ward Pavilion, 4830 W. Central Ave., Toledo

Admission: Free

Information: In-person attendees should RSVP to Susan Modarai at 419-344-2779 or susan.modarai@gmail.com; Zoom access is at bit.ly/3tJt0hi, Meeting ID: 852 8568 6034, Passcode: 940893

The Race Amity Festival is the first large-scale race amity gathering in Toledo, and one of numerous centennial observations across the country, according to William H. "Smitty" Smith, the founding executive director of the National Center for Race Amity. His Acton, Mass.-based center has been hosting annual race amity conferences since it was established in 2010, and the director said they work with 'hundreds of communities" that plan programs annually to observe the second Sunday in June as Race Amity Day.

With this centenary lending additional energy to the mission, he said these and other "communities around the country are having some sort of activity or are really focusing on participating in the centenary conference that we're having in two weeks."

That's the National Race Amity Virtual Conference Centenary Celebration beginning Friday.

For more information, go to raceamity.org.

Advertisement

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and First Church of God's Bishop Robert Culp are among the keynote speakers that organizers have lined up for the local festival and centennial observation, which they said will also encompass breakout sessions and entertainment. It's slated for 1 to 4 p.m. at Wildwood's Ward Pavilion, 4830 W. Central Ave.

In-person attendees are encouraged to RSVP by contacting Susan Modarai at 419-344-2779 or susan.modarai@gmail.com, and can additionally participate virtually via Zoom.

Organizers see the festival as the first in a series of programs and discussions geared toward race amity.

"I think the main thing that we want to come out of this are some goals and objectives as to how we keep this going in the future," Paul Hubbard said. "This is not just a one-time situation. This is a situation where we want to have ongoing activities for at least a year."

June Boyd has also been involved in planning the festival programming.

"There's such a lack of understanding, for many people, between the races," Ms. Boyd said. "The only way we can solve it is by getting together."

While anti-racism and its corollary objectives are championed by numerous faith traditions, race amity, specifically, is an approach that bears particular significance in the Bahá'í Faith, which holds the unity of humanity among its central teachings.

The world's youngest major religion, the Bahá'í Faith understands many of the central figures of the world's other major religions among a series of divine teachers and manifestations of God.

The 1921 Race Amity Convention was organized at the direction of Abdu'l-Baha, then the head of the Bahá'í Faith. Abdu'l-Baha instructed Agnes Parsons, a white woman prominent in the capital's high society at the time, to arrange the convention after seeing for himself the plight of people of color under segregation laws on a visit to the United States in 1912.

Ms. Parsons worked with Coralie Franklin Cook and Louis Gregory, among others, to put together the first of a series of conventions in 1921.

At a time when the country is experiencing a renewed urgency toward mending race relations, and in the spirit of that first convention, Mr. Modarai said he hoped Friday's festival would be "an open opportunity to learn and put into practice the art of race amity."

He drew on the still-relevant words of Abdu'l-Baha: "Do not be content by showing friendship in words alone; let your hearts burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path."

First Published May 16, 2021, 11:00am