Color blindness

Not look upon a person's color but upon their heart[edit]

"Let them look not upon a man's colour but upon his heart. If the heart be filled with light, that man is nigh unto the threshold of his Lord; but if not, that man is careless of his Lord, be he white or be he black."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, sec. 76)

Prayer for good character whereby all will just be called human[edit]

"I pray that you attain to such a degree of good character and behavior that the names of black and white shall vanish. All shall be called human, just as the name for a flight of doves is dove. They are not called black and white. Likewise with other birds."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, Talk at Howard University, p. 46)

God does not look at colors[edit]

"If the heart is pure, white or black or any color makes no difference. God does not look at colors; He looks at the hearts. He whose heart is pure is better. He whose character is better is more pleasing. He who turns more to the Abhá Kingdom is more advanced."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, Talk at Howard University, p. 44)

White American Bahá'ís should come to not think of fellow believers of African descent in terms of color[edit]

"White American Bahá'ís, he feels, although they have very much less prejudice than the American people, are nevertheless tainted to some extent with this national evil, perhaps wholly unconsciously so. Therefore, it behooves every believer of white extraction to carefully study his own attitude, and to see whether he is condescending in his relations with his fellow-Bahá'ís of Negro extraction, whether he ever unconsciously insults them by using the term `nigger' or being patronizingly kind, whether he invites them freely to his home, and makes friends of them to such a point that he no longer knows whether they are colored or white, but only thinks of them as Bill or Mary, so to speak."

(On behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the Bahá'í Inter-Racial Teaching Committee, 5/27/57, Microfilm Collection of the Original Letters of Shoghi Effendi, National Bahá'í Archives, Wilmette, IL; published in Pupil of the Eye, p. 100, no. 5-33 and Power of Unity, no. 54)

On becoming a Bahá'í, one's past color is no longer important but lends color and charm[edit]

"...when a person becomes a Bahá'í, he gives up the past only in the sense that he is a part of this new and living Faith of God, and must seek to pattern himself, in act and thought, along the lines laid down by Bahá'u'lláh. The fact that he is by origin a Jew or a Christian, a black man or a white man, is not important any more, but, as you say, lends colour and charm to the Bahá'í Community in that it demonstrates unity in diversity."

(12 March 1949, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; in Cultural Diversity in the Age of Maturity, no. 158)