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White Australia Policy
Most us take a multicultural, multiracial reality in our stride – a normal and welcome part of life. It is a very recent development. For a Faith that arrived in Australia when the White Australia policy was the law, it inevitably raised questions for some of the newly enrolled Baha’is. How were they to square their religious beliefs – with the expectations of the society around them? And maybe with their own unexamined prejudices about their fellow human beings? The period in question unfolded mostly during the time that Shoghi Effendi led the Baha’i Faith. And at a general level, the likely answer was clear enough. Baha’u’llah came to establish the…
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Louis Gregory – Service to the Oneness of Humanity
Slavery was not a tale read from dusty history books for Louis Gregory. It was a close family memory. Louis Gregory was born in 1874. Both Louis’ parents had been freed from slavery by the civil war. His grandmother on his mother’s side, was an African transported to America as a slave in the Atlantic slave trade, and his grandfather was her white master. When Louis was four his father died. At age 7, Louis Gregory witnessed the murder of his African American grandfather by the Ku Klux Klan, because of his grandfather’s success as a blacksmith. At age 17 Louis lost his mother, who died in child birth. From these difficult beginnings, his life began…
