Hundreds of Baha'i communities throughout the United States observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day by helping to organize public events to commemorate the great, slain civil rights leader.

The Ageless Northshore website editors, Don and Peg Shearn, interviewed the Baha'i House of Worship Music Director, Van Gilmer, for a story on their site this week -- Van Gilmer: the Harmonious Voice of Diversity.

Hundreds of Baha'i communities throughout the United States observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day by helping to organize public events to commemorate the great, slain civil rights leader.

Gwen Clayborne, a Baha'i from Glencoe, Ill., was featured recently on the Chicago-based public television program, "30 Good Minutes."

Blend American jazz, Brazilian samba and Chinese traditional sounds and what do you have? A song played at the Olympics in Beijing.

Robert Hayden surmounted an impoverished childhood to become the first African-American to be appointed Poet Laureate.

Helen Elsie Austin, a Baha'i who devoted her life to justice and truth, was a woman of many “firsts.” She was one of the first African-American women lawyers in the United States, the first African-American woman to receive a law degree from the University of Cincinnati and the first African-American woman to serve as an assistant to a state attorney general.

Louis Gregory reached more people than any other advocate of racial harmony in the first half of the 20th century, says Gayle Morrison, a Baha'i who has researched the life and contributions of Mr. Gregory, an early U.S. Baha'i.

© Bahá’í International Community

Baha'is view racism as America's most vital and challenging issue. Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith, taught that the world's peace, prosperity and well being ultimately depend on the recognition of the oneness of humanity.

Van Gilmer vividly remembers participating in the March on Washington (for Jobs and Freedom) on Aug. 28, 1963, while a student at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.