Social and World Issues

At 14, Richard (Ricky) Abercrombie was besieged by prejudice because of his multi-racial background and angered by unsatisfactory answers to his heartfelt questions about religious truth. The time was 1960, and the place was Greenville, South Carolina. Ricky began carrying a gun, skipping school, and numbing his painful emotions with alcohol. His parents were worried and his future looked bleak. What happened next – an invitation to a birthday party at the home of a Bahá’í family – changed his life forever. Ricky became intrigued by Bahá’í teachings on racial equality, peaceful strategies for social justice, and the fundamental unity of religion. As he investigated these teachings, Ricky experienced a profound spiritual awakening that led him to give up the gun, stop drinking, and engage in life with hope and joy. His friends and family initially opposed his dangerous new association with racially integrated groups, but Ricky’s steadfastness drew them into investigating his new beliefs themselves. This true story of how a rebellious teenager transformed his own character and affected the lives of dozens of friends and family members is a cover-to-cover delight.

The Fashioner takes the reader on a journey through the various ways in which the arts can touch people’s lives. Drawing on inspirational quotations from the Bahá’í Writings, as well as interviews with a number of artists, this book explores the transformative power of the arts.

In the Beginning Was a Word

How Language Knits Reality Together

In the Beginning Was a Word is an accessible discussion intended for those who find delight in the extraordinary capacity of language to express what is otherwise inexpressible.

In 1949, Melba and Jim Loft abandoned a comfortable middle-class existence in Marysville, Michigan, to teach their Faith in the land of Jim's forefathers, the Tyendinaga Mohawk Indian Reserve in Ontario, Canada. Despite hardship and tragedy, the Lofts persevered, fulfilling Jim and Melba's cherished dream of bringing Baha'u'llah's word to First Nations people. This, their daughter Evelyn's memoir, is the record of that challenging and exhilarating time.

For almost two centuries, followers of the Bahá’í Faith, Iran’s largest religious minority, have been persecuted by the state. They have been made scapegoats for the nation's ills, branded enemies of Islam and denounced as foreign agents. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 Bahá’ís have been barred from entering the nation's universities, more than two hundred have been executed, and hundreds more imprisoned and tortured.

Now, however, Iran is at a turning point. A new generation has begun to question how the Bahá’ís have been portrayed by the government and the clergy, and called for them to be given equal rights as fellow citizens. In documenting, for the first time, the plight of this religious community in Iran since its inception, Fereydun Vahman also reveals the greater plight of a nation aspiring to develop a modern identity built on respect for diversity rather than hatred and self-deception.

This book is the story of Harlem Prep: Transforming Dropouts into Scholars.

This book serves as an excellent reference guide or research tool for anyone looking to deepen on the history of American Indians role and involvement in the Bahá’í Faith and community.