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WORK TITLE: No Jim Crow Church
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.louisventers.com/
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COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.fmarion.edu/academics/facultyandstaff/article93693c8430134.htm * https://www.louisventers.com/about-me * https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-venters-7621a355
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born SC; married; children: two.
EDUCATION:Winthrop University, B.A. (cum laude), 1998; University of South Carolina-Columbia, Ph.D., 2010.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Education for Peace, Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina, regional coordinator, 2000-01; Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden, horticulturalist, 2002-03; University of South Carolina, teaching assistant, 2003-06; Francis Marion University, Florence, SC, adjunct instructor, 2007-08, assistant professor, 2008-15, associate professor, 2015-. Also Francis Marion Trail Commission, lecturer, 2008-10, and South Carolina Board of Review, National Register of Historic Places, member, 2012-.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Louis Venters is an associate professor of history at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. He is also the author of No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina’s Bahá’í Community, his first book.
Venters, who is himself a member of the Baha’i Faith, details the growth of this small religious movement in his home state of South Carolina. While the Baha’i Faith is committed to racial and gender equality, this commitment was put to the test in the racially unstable environment of the South after the Civil War and beyond. The Baha’i Faith spread from Washington, DC, to the Deep South after the Civil War, and followers were faced with pressure to change their stance on race. Some black converts faced persecution, while white members were scrutinized by their neighbors and by members of law enforcement. Even among themselves there was discord, as they had differing opinions about whether there should be racial integration within the group. After much controversy, however, the various branches throughout the state stuck to their principles and to the teachings of racial equality. Venters brings the story up through 1968.
Journal of Southern History reviewer Andrew C. Smith was impressed with No Jim Crow Church and wrote: “Students of South Carolina history, of the history of the civil rights movement, and of the Baha’i Faith will find this book interesting, as it is filled with local color and detailed narrative. At the same time, because the book does not hold itself out as an introduction to the Baha’i Faith, readers unfamiliar with the movement may need to consult other secondary work for details about this young religion.” Smith felt that Venters could have gone further, however, saying: “Venters brings little research on either sectarian religion or on new religious movements to bear on his analysis. It is to be hoped that the author may bring some of these tools to a second volume on his subjects, tracing the growth of the Baha’i Faith in South Carolina from 1968 to the present.”
Wilmette Institute Web site reviewer Robert H. Stockman was also impressed with the book and commented: “No Jim Crow Church is superbly well written and extensively footnoted. If anything, one could complain that the book offers too much context, but for those unfamiliar with the history of racism and civil rights in South Carolina, the context is welcome. In the process of describing South Carolina Bahá’í history, the book reviews every major development in American Bahá’í history, from its founding in 1894 to the end of the turbulent 1960s, and thus provides an excellent overview of the history of the national community as well.” Stockman continued: “While it focuses on the Bahá’ís of South Carolina from 1898 to 1968, the book is also superbly contextualized, both in terms of South Carolina’s social and religious history and in terms of the development of the overall American Bahá’í community. As such, it provides a richly detailed exploration of a microcosm of the American Bahá’í community and a paradigmatic example of the trends of the American Bahá’í community as a whole during a crucial period of its history.” Stockman added in conclusion that “South Carolina’s Bahá’í community accomplished a remarkable feat that was without real parallel: in the midst of a political and religious culture that denied the humanity of people of African descent in virtually every department of life, they created an interracial religious fellowship in which blacks and whites participated fully, unitedly, and as complete equals, from the local level up.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April, 2016, R.J. Vejnar, review of No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina’s Bahá’í Community, p. 1184.
Journal of Southern History, 2017, Andrew C. Smith, review of No Jim Crow Church, p. 217.
ONLINE
Francis Marion University Web site, http://www.fmarion.edu/ (April 5, 2017), author faculty profile.
Louis Venters Home Page, https://www.louisventers.com (April 4, 2017).
Louis Venters LinkedIn Page, https://www.linkedin.com/ (April 4, 2017).
Wilmette Institute Web site, https://wilmetteinstitute.org (June 29, 2016), Robert H. Stockman, review of No Jim Crow Church.
Louis Venters
Associate Professor of History at Francis Marion University
Francis Marion University University of South Carolina-Columbia
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I am a historian and historic preservationist with particular interest in the histories of race, religion, and social change in the United States; issues of rural and urban planning; the intersection of cultural and environmental stewardship; and the empowerment of young people and disadvantaged communities.
My institutional home is the History Department of Francis Marion University, where I teach courses in African, African American, Southern U.S., South Carolina, and United States history. I have a number of conference presentations, public history projects, and publications to my credit, including the Francis Marion Trail Commission's driving tour of sixteen Revolutionary War sites in the Pee Dee and Santee river basins of the South Carolina Lowcountry, for which I served as principal author (2011). My first historical monograph, No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Bahá’í Community, is forthcoming from the University Press of Florida (2015).
In all my roles as teacher, scholar, and practitioner, I am motivated by a desire to serve humanity; to promote an ethic of global citizenship; to build systems of justice, equity, and prosperity; and to transcend traditional social divisions.
Experience
Francis Marion University
Assistant Professor of History
Company NameFrancis Marion University
Dates EmployedMar 2007 – Present Employment Duration10 yrs 1 mo LocationFlorence, SC
+ History Department Pre-Law Advisor
+ History Department Student Advisor
+ Member, Provost's Workgroup on African American Studies
+ Member, African American Collection Committee, Rogers Library
+ Developed new course, HIST 370, African History
See less See less about Assistant Professor of History, Francis Marion University
National Register of Historic Places
Member, SC State Board of Review
Company NameNational Register of Historic Places
Dates Employed2012 – Present Employment Duration5 yrs
See description See more about Member, SC State Board of Review, National Register of Historic Places
Francis Marion Trail Commission
Lecturer in History
Company NameFrancis Marion Trail Commission
Dates Employed2008 – 2010 Employment Duration2 yrs
See description See more about Lecturer in History, Francis Marion Trail Commission
Riverbanks Zoo & Botanical Garden
Horticulturist
Company NameRiverbanks Zoo & Botanical Garden
Dates Employed2002 – 2003 Employment Duration1 yr LocationColumbia, SC
See description See more about Horticulturist, Riverbanks Zoo & Botanical Garden
Education for Peace
Regional Coordinator
Company NameEducation for Peace
Dates Employed2000 – 2001 Employment Duration1 yr LocationBanja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina
See description See more about Regional Coordinator, Education for Peace
See more positions
Education
University of South Carolina-Columbia
University of South Carolina-Columbia
Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Field Of Study U.S. History, African American History, Historic Preservation
Dates attended or expected graduation 2003 – 2010
+ Dissertation, "'Most Great Reconstruction': The Baha'i Faith in Jim Crow South Carolina, 1898-1965"
+ Graduate Teaching Assistant
+ Graduate Research Assistant
+ Two Thumbs Up Award for service to students with disabilities
+ Public History internship at Mayors' Institute for Community Design, Columbia, SC
+ Co-author, "Camden African American History Project" (2006)
See less See less about University of South Carolina-Columbia, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Winthrop University
Winthrop University
Degree Name Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Field Of Study History, Modern Languages (French and Mandarin) Grade Graduated cum laude
Dates attended or expected graduation 1995 – 1998
Accomplishments
Louis has 6 publications6
Publications
See publication No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Bahá'í Community
publication titleNo Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Bahá'í Community
publication descriptionBook manuscript under contract for publication in July 2015
publication descriptionUniversity Press of Florida
Authors
Louis Venters
publication titleRace, Religion, and Social Change: The South Carolina Bahá’í Movement and American History
publication descriptionArticle under review for collection of conference proceedings for publication by a European academic press
Authors
Louis Venters
publication titleWelcome to Swamp Fox Country!
publication descriptionSixteen wayside signs and three tour booklets for Francis Marion Trail Commission’s self-guided driving tour of Revolutionary War sites in eastern South Carolina
publication date2011
Authors
Louis Venters
See publication Florence Benson Elementary School
publication titleFlorence Benson Elementary School
publication descriptionNomination document for listing on National Register of Historic Places
publication date2009
Authors
Rebekah DobraskoLouis Venters
See publication Camden African-American Heritage Project
publication titleCamden African-American Heritage Project
publication descriptionCommunity history with preservation recommendations, commissioned by Landmarks Commission of City of Camden, SC
Authors
Lindsay CrawfordAshley GuinnMcKenzie KublyLindsay MaybinTrish ShandorSanti ThompsonLouis Venters
publication titleEvidence of Things Not Seen: Civil Rights Collections at USC
publication descriptionText panels for exhibit at University of South Carolina libraries
publication date2004
Languages
Language nameEnglish
Native or bilingual proficiency
Language nameFrench
Professional working proficiency
Faculty & Staff
Academics > History > Faculty & Staff
Dr. Louis Venters, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
(University of South Carolina, 2010)
Office Location: FH 273
Voice Mail: (843) 661-1593
Fax: (843) 661-1155
E-mail: lventers@fmarion.edu
Dr. Venters began teaching at Francis Marion in 2007. He is a co-author of the award-winning public history study "African Americans in Camden, South Carolina" (2006) and, most recently, published No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Bahá'i Community (University Press of Florida, 2015). He is particularly interested in the history of race, religion, and social change in the United States, as well as issues of rural and urban planning and the intersection of cultural and environmental stewardship. A Pee Dee native, he has lived and traveled extensively in Africa, Central America, and Europe.
Courses Taught:
U.S. History since 1877, The New South, History of Black Americans, African History, South Carolina History
Last Published: September 9, 2015 2:58 PM
ABOUT ME
TEACHING
2015- Associate Professor, Francis Marion University
2008-2015 Assistant Professor, Francis Marion University
2007-2008 Adjunct Instructor, Francis Marion University
2003-2006 Teaching Assistant, University of South Carolina
BIOGRAPHY
I am a historian and historic preservationist with particular interest in the histories of race, religion, and social change in the United States; issues of rural and urban planning; the intersection of cultural and environmental stewardship; and the empowerment of young people and disadvantaged communities.
In my work I bring to bear not only the formal training I received in graduate school, but the outlook and sensibilities that come from my spiritual life, the lessons of growing up in racially integrated urban public schools in the South, and experiences as a young adult living and working in Togo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Nicaragua.
I was born in eastern South Carolina. Although I've traveled around the world, I feel fortunate to be back in this region at Francis Marion University, where I teach courses in African, African American, and Southern U.S. history and pursue scholarship, consulting, and service in a number of areas. My first book, No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Bahá’í Community, has just been published by the University Press of Florida (2015).
I am the proud and grateful husband of a wise Latina and father of two extraordinary little boys. I feel especially connected to the streams of my cultural heritage when I sing Sacred Harp and spirituals. I grow food and flowers for my family and neighbors and support local, organic agriculture and sustainable land management. I really enjoy running and lifting weights, and I practice capoeira, the distinctive Afro-Brazilian martial art that the United Nations has recognized as an important part of humanity's cultural heritage.
PURPOSE
In all my roles—as teacher, scholar, practitioner, husband, father—I am motivated by a desire to serve humanity; to promote an ethic of global citizenship; to build systems of justice, equity, and prosperity; and to transcend traditional social divisions.
EDUCATION
2010 Ph.D. in History, University of South Carolina
TEACHING
2015- Associate Professor, Francis Marion University
2008-2015 Assistant Professor, Francis Marion University
2007-2008 Adjunct Instructor, Francis Marion University
2003-2006 Teaching Assistant, University of South Carolina
SERVICE
2016- Board of Directors, Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation
2014- SC African American Heritage Commission, ex officio
2012-2016 SC Board of Review, Nat'l Register of Historic Places
QUOTED: Students of South Carolina history, of the history of the civil rights movement, and of the Baha'i Faith will find this book interesting, as it is filled with local color and detailed narrative. At the same time, because the book does not hold itself out as an introduction to the Baha'i Faith, readers unfamiliar with the movement may need to consult other secondary work for details about this young religion.
Venters brings little research on either sectarian religion or on new religious movements to bear on his analysis. It is to be hoped that the author may bring some of these tools to a second volume on his subjects, tracing the growth of the Baha'i Faith in South Carolina from 1968 to the present.
No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Baha'i Community
Andrew C. Smith
Journal of Southern History. 83.1 (Feb. 2017): p217.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
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Full Text:
No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina's Baha'i Community. By Louis Venters. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. xxii, 321. $74.95, ISBN 978-0-8130-6107-8.)
Louis Venters seeks to place the early growth of the Baha'i Faith in South Carolina in the context of that state's Jim Crow regime and ensuing civil rights movement. Venters, himself a member of the Baha'i Faith, describes the growth of this unique movement in his home state in detail, leaning on extensive research in Baha'i archives and secular sources to describe a tiny religious movement's struggle to be true to its commitment to both racial and gender equality in a region unfriendly to such notions. Because of the unmanageability of handling the faith's entire South Carolina history in a single volume, Venters ends his story with the movement poised for growth in 1968.
Venters situates his narrative with other contemporary scholarship that has shown that religion in the post-Civil War South was integral to racial conflict in the region. With that in mind, the author tells a story of a religious movement that sought to spread into the Deep South from Washington, D.C., an early center of Baha'i activity, only to find that racial attitudes in South Carolina and surrounding states put extraordinary pressure on Baha'is to modify their commitment to the oneness of humanity. Black converts faced the possibility of outright persecution, while white believers faced both internal and external pressures. Scrutinized by neighbors and law enforcement, Baha'i's sometimes disagreed among themselves about the extent to which teaching and devotional activities should be racially integrated. In the end, however, the movement's South Carolina branches retained and even intensified their commitment to racial egalitarianism because of their firm commitment to the authority of the faith's leaders, of its guiding strategy, and of interpretations of the faith from a center in Haifa, in modern-day Israel.
Venters notes that he hopes that his story will bring new attention to the story of South Carolina's civil rights movement, and he provides rich detail about the conflicted setting in which the early spread of the Baha'i Faith took place. Although he wants to offer his subjects as playing important roles in the civil rights struggle, the connection between the mainstream activism of groups such as the NAACP and the Progressive Democratic Party and the quiet, patient community building of the Baha'is is often unclear before the book's final chapter, especially since the Baha'i Faith prohibits both partisan political activity and civil disobedience.
Students of South Carolina history, of the history of the civil rights movement, and of the Baha'i Faith will find this book interesting, as it is filled with local color and detailed narrative. At the same time, because the book does not hold itself out as an introduction to the Baha'i Faith, readers unfamiliar with the movement may need to consult other secondary work for details about this young religion. Additionally, scholars reading from the perspective of religious studies rather than history will find that the author deals with the Baha'i Faith on terms that are dictated by the faith itself rather than by any particular theoretical position; Venters explicitly declares that the Baha'i Faith "defies the most common scholarly categories of American religious bodies" (p. 4). As a result, Venters brings little research on either sectarian religion or on new religious movements to bear on his analysis. It is to be hoped that the author may bring some of these tools to a second volume on his subjects, tracing the growth of the Baha'i Faith in South Carolina from 1968 to the present.
Andrew C. Smith
Carson-Newman University
Venters, Louis. No Jim Crow church: the origins of South Carolina's Baha'i community
R.J. Vejnar
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1184.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
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Full Text:
Venters, Louis. No Jim Crow church: the origins of South Carolina's Baha'i community. University Press of Florida, 2015. 321p bibl index afp ISBN 9780813061078 cloth, $74.95; ISBN 9780813055497 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-3480
BP352
CIP
Other than a 1990 doctoral dissertation that centered on the African American credited with popularizing the Baha'i faith in the US in the early 20th century, historian Venters (Francis Marion Univ.) has written the first scholarly examination of the religion in over two decades. Relying heavily on previously underused archival sources, he traces the history of the religion from its origins in Iran and the Middle East to its planting in South Carolina by an African American employee of the US Treasury Department. Venters then looks at its growth and development through 1968. The religion, which asserts that the Messiah had already returned in the 19th century, was particularly appealing to many in Jim Crow South Carolina because of its emphasis on complete racial, gender, and economic equality. This focus on egalitarianism also attracted the ire of those committed to maintaining the Jim Crow status quo and reveals how those individuals tried to combat it. Nevertheless, the religion became the largest minority faith in South Carolina during the period under study, demonstrating that religious diversity did exist within the state. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Graduate students/ faculty.--R. J. Vejnar, Emory & Henry College
Vejnar, R.J.
QUOTED: No Jim Crow Church is superbly well written and extensively footnoted. If anything, one could complain that the book offers too much context, but for those unfamiliar with the history of racism and civil rights in South Carolina, the context is welcome. In the process of describing South Carolina Bahá’í history, the book reviews every major development in American Bahá’í history, from its founding in 1894 to the end of the turbulent 1960s, and thus provides an excellent overview of the history of the national community as well.
While it focuses on the Bahá’ís of South Carolina from 1898 to 1968, the book is also superbly contextualized, both in terms of South Carolina’s social and religious history and in terms of the development of the overall American Bahá’í community.
South Carolina’s Bahá’í community accomplished a remarkable feat that was without real parallel: in the midst of a political and religious culture that denied the humanity of people of African descent in virtually every department of life, they created an interracial religious fellowship in which blacks and whites participated fully, unitedly, and as complete equals, from the local level up.
A Review of Louis Venters’ No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina’s Bahá’í Community
Posted on June 29, 2016 by Robert Stockman — No Comments ↓
No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina’s Bahá’í Community, by Louis Venters. Gainesville, Florida: UP of Florida, 2015. xxii +322 pages, notes, bibliography, index. $74.95, hardcover, $27.95, paperback
No Jim Crow ChurchLouis Venters’ remarkable book No Jim Crow Church: The Origins of South Carolina’s Bahá’í Community is possibly the best piece of history written about the American Bahá’ís to date. While it focuses on the Bahá’ís of South Carolina from 1898 to 1968, the book is also superbly contextualized, both in terms of South Carolina’s social and religious history and in terms of the development of the overall American Bahá’í community. As such, it provides a richly detailed exploration of a microcosm of the American Bahá’í community and a paradigmatic example of the trends of the American Bahá’í community as a whole during a crucial period of its history.
The book’s thesis (xiii) is also remarkable:
Although numerically insignificant and apparently powerless during the period under review, South Carolina’s Bahá’í community accomplished a remarkable feat that was without real parallel: in the midst of a political and religious culture that denied the humanity of people of African descent in virtually every department of life, they created an interracial religious fellowship in which blacks and whites participated fully, unitedly, and as complete equals, from the local level up. The very presence of such a community, forged in the interstices of Jim Crow South Carolina, undermined both the practical mechanisms and the spiritual underpinnings of white supremacy.
No Jim Crow Church details the initial resistance of white Bahá’ís to their new Faith’s high standards of interracial fellowship as well as the external opposition from churches, politicians, and the Ku Klux Klan. The seventy years of slow but steady growth detailed in the book set the stage for the Bahá’í Faith becoming a mass movement among some of South Carolina’s African American community in 1969–71. That made the South Carolina Bahá’í community the largest community by state in the United States for a time and catapulted the Faith to the status of the largest non-Christian religion in South Carolina, larger, by some counts, than Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists.
The book’s six chapters and a coda cover developments in chronological order. “First Contacts, 1898–1916” describes the arrival of the Bahá’í Faith in South Carolina through the efforts of a African American lawyer, Louis G. Gregory, who was a resident of Washington, D.C., but a native of Charleston. Gregory’s efforts to desegregate the Washington, D.C., Bahá’í community set the pattern of racially integrated local Bahá’í communities across the United States and resulted in his election to the national Bahá’í coordinating council in 1912, the first African American so to serve. But the fate of the first South Carolina convert—Alonzo Twine, a black attorney in Charleston, who was committed to the state’s insane asylum by his family and his minister, apparently because of his new found faith—underlined the immense resistance to conversion to a non-Christian religion that both whites and blacks faced in the south.
Chapter 2, “The Divine Plan, the Great War, and Progressive-Era Racial Politics, 1914–1921” reviews Louis Gregory’s numerous trips across the South and his (and others’) efforts to teach the Bahá’í Faith in churches, colleges, and public halls. The Tablets of the Divine Plan, a series of letters from the head of the Bahá’í Faith, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to the North American Bahá’ís, stimulated a great outpouring effort to spread the Faith. But black churches often attacked the Bahá’í Faith and the NAACP—which was trying to establish chapters across South Carolina in the face of violent opposition—was not a receptive audience.
“Building a Bahá’í Community in Augusta and North Augusta, 1911–1939,” Chapter 3, covers the establishment of the first Bahá’í community in South Carolina in a wealthy white suburb of Augusta, Georgia, thanks to the efforts of a German music teacher. But in spite of the universal appeal of music, the community achieved only partial racial integration. Nevertheless, it was a center of activity that brought some two dozen people into the Bahá’í Faith, scattered across the state.
Chapter 4, “The Great Depression, the Second World War, and the First Seven Year Plan, 1935–1945” reviews the effort to spreads the Bahá’í Faith systematically across South Carolina through the agency of a regional teaching committee that coordinated the flow of visiting teachers and “pioneers” (Bahá’ís who moved to a place to help establish a Bahá’í community). Growing Bahá’í communities in Nashville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia, developed experience in achieving full racial integration, but fledgling communities in North Augusta and Greenville continued to have a much more difficult transition. The mayor of Greenville, however, allowed the Bahá’ís to use the City Council Chamber for their meetings, as it was the only public place in town where interracial meetings were possible.
“Postwar Opportunities, Cold War Challenges, and the Second Seven Year Plan, 1944–1953,” Chapter 5, discusses further growth as the civil rights movement began to weaken the Jim Crow system. The Greenville Bahá’í community grew stronger, a community was established in Columbia, and groups of Bahá’ís began to form all across the state. Louis Gregory, in his old age, was able to return home to meet South Carolina Bahá’ís, who numbered about thirty.
Chapter 6, “The Ten Year Plan and the Fall of Jim Crow, 1950–1965,” covers a period of rapid change. Systematic and vicious attacks on the NAACP forced more than half of its local branches to close by 1957 and created an atmosphere that made it very difficult for the Bahá’í communities. In response, Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Bahá’í Faith, advised American Bahá’ís in the South to concentrate their teaching efforts on the black community, rather than trying to reach both blacks and whites. The white Bahá’ís had to adjust to being the minority members in their religion, and efforts to spread the Bahá’í Faith turned to the Midlands and the Lowcountry where the majority of the population was African American. The results were surprising. Not only did the number of black members increase considerably, but more whites joined as well. In 1961, a white Bahá’í attorney in Columbia was able to obtain a legal opinion that Bahá’í marriages were legal in South Carolina, in spite of the fact that community lacked a minister to officiate. Bahá’í communities were able to legally incorporate. Bahá’ís became actively involved in civil rights protests.
By 1963, the membership of the South Carolina Bahá’í community grew to eighty adults and probably an equal number of children and youth. The growth of the Bahá’í Faith among black Americans achieved a notable milestone in that year when the first Universal House of Justice was elected—the religion’s nine-member international coordinating body—and one of the nine was African American, Amos Everett Gibson, from Washington, D.C.
No Jim Crow Church ends with a Coda “Toward a Bahá’í Mass Movement, 1963–1968.” It reviews the plans to expand the Bahá’í community between 1964 and 1973, the great success of the civil rights movement to dismantle Jim Crow, and the increased vibrancy of the Bahá’í community itself, which nearly doubled to 132 members in five short years. The developments set the scene for efforts at door-to-door teaching in the rural African American districts of the Lowcountry, which by 1971 brought in as many as twenty thousand into the Bahá’í Faith. No doubt that story will require a future volume.
No Jim Crow Church is superbly well written and extensively footnoted. If anything, one could complain that the book offers too much context, but for those unfamiliar with the history of racism and civil rights in South Carolina, the context is welcome. In the process of describing South Carolina Bahá’í history, the book reviews every major development in American Bahá’í history, from its founding in 1894 to the end of the turbulent 1960s, and thus provides an excellent overview of the history of the national community as well. Overt errors of fact are few; this reviewer only noted one (‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to North America ran from April to December 1912, not February to September). For those wanting to know what claims the Bahá’í Faith makes and why it has grown as quickly or slowly as it has, the book is a ground-breaking introduction.
Robert H. Stockman
Indiana University South Bend