Harmony of Races
Racial diversity is a source of beauty and strength; racism is a spiritual disease that impoverishes all of humanity.
The Bahá'í writings use the metaphor of a garden with different colored flowers: the variety makes it more beautiful than a garden of one color. Racial diversity enriches humanity. Racism — whether systemic, cultural, or individual — contradicts the principle of oneness and must be actively combated by every Bahá'í.
The diversity in the human family should be the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together in the making of a perfect chord.
Abdu'l-Bahá's 1912 American lectures on racial harmony were extraordinary given the racial climate of the time, making the Bahá'í community early practitioners of integration.
Paris Talks