Louis George Gregory

Louis George Gregory (June 6, 1874 – July 30, 1951) was a prominent American member of the Baháʼí Faith who was devoted to its expansion in the United States and elsewhere. He traveled especially in the South to spread his religion as well as advocating for racial unity.

In 1922, he was the first African American elected to the nine-member National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada. He was repeatedly re-elected to that position, leading a generation and more of followers. He also worked to proselytize the faith to Central and South America.

Gregory was among the elite group of educated African American leaders whom W. E. Du Bois referred to as "the talented tenth."

Gregory was posthumously appointed by Shoghi Effendi in 1951 as a Hand of the Cause, the highest appointed rank in the Baháʼí Faith.

Early years

Early life Louis George was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 6, 1874, the second son of Ebenezer F. and Mary Elizabeth George. Both of his parents were formerly enslaved African Americans who were emancipated during the Civil War.

Circa 1881, when Gregory was 7 years old, he witnessed the lynching of his grandfather by "a hate-inspired mob of white men," possibly Ku Klux Klan members

In 1881, Louis's mother remarried to George Gregory, who was the only freeman of African descent to join the Union Army from the 3000 in Charleston at the time. George Gregory rose to 1st Sgt. in the 104th United States Colored Troops (USCT) after being recruited by Major Delaney, of African descent. After the war, he was honorifically called Colonel Gregory and his family received a Civil War pension. At this point Louis George Gregory took the name of his stepfather. Due to his military service, his stepson Louis George Gregory was introduced in family situations to make friends with the European descent children of Army officers who would visit the home. George Gregory was also a leader in the community, playing a significant role in the inter-racial United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; upon his death in 1929, the Union put out an advertisement in the Charleston Newspaper asking all Union members to attend, 1000 of both races did make it to Monrovia Union Cemetery, where headstones to George and Mary Elizabeth stand to this day.

Education During his elementary schooling, Louis Gregory attended the Avery Institute, the first public school open to both African American and white children in Charleston. George and Mary Elizabeth wanted children, but she lost many as infants. Mary Elizabeth died in 1891, three months after giving birth; that infant died soon after birth. Gregory's older brother Theodore died the same year. Gregory still graduated from the Avery Institute, and gave the graduation speech entitled, "Thou Shalt Not Live For Thyself Alone." Avery Institute honors Gregory by displaying his portrait in their preserved classroom.

Gregory gained a stepbrother, Harrison Gregory, when his stepfather married the widow Lauretta Gregory. Lauretta's husband, Louis Noisette, a Civil War veteran, had died while she was pregnant with Harrison.

The Noisette family became prominent in Charleston after leaving Saint-Domingue. Philippe Stanislas Noisette was the young son of a Nantes horticulturalist working for the King of France. His father sent him to Saint-Domingue to send back exotic flowers. While there he married Celestine, who was of African descent. They fled the violence of the Haitian Revolution to Charleston, together with two of Celestine's family members.

Because of the miscegenation laws of South Carolina, Philippe had to declare Celestine a slave in order to have her live with him. They had six children together, who were mixed-race. In 1809 he requested manumission of one of the family members, but the legislature refused it.

One of the two men fathered Benjamin who became enslaved by the Solomon family. Benjamin's children recorded in an 1893 deposition that throughout their enslavement their father made clear to them to remember their last name was Noisette rather than that of their enslaver. Harrison escaped enslavement in 1862 and joined the Union Navy on May 6, 1862, in Port Royal, South Carolina. Benjamin also escaped enslavement in 1862 and went on to the freeman's Camp Barker, as it was known then, in Washington, D.C. Gregory's step-brother's father Louis Noisette remained enslaved until African-American soldiers liberated Charleston in February 1865. He then joined the 33rd USCT Regiment as a drummer to help liberate his mother and sister who remained enslaved in Savannah. After the war Louis Noisette married Lauretta, and had the child Harrison Noisette who became Harrison Gregory.

University and professional years Gregory's generous stepfather paid for his first year at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he studied English literature. Using the tailoring skills his mother had taught him he managed the finances needed for the rest of his bachelor's degree. There being no law schools that would accept him in the South, he continued on to Howard University in Washington, D.C., one of the few universities to accept black graduate students, to study law and received his LL.B degree in Spring 1902. He was admitted to the bar, and along with another young lawyer, James A. Cobb, opened a law office in Washington, D.C. The partnership ended in 1906, after Gregory started to work in the United States Department of the Treasury. In 1904 Gregory was listed as a supporter of the committee for a celebration of Booker T. Washington. In 1906 Gregory served as vice president of the Howard University Law School Alumni association. Gregory had been attracted to the Niagara Movement and active in the Bethel Literary and Historical Society, a Negro organization devoted to discussing issues of the day – he had been elected a vice president in 1907 and president in 1909. Meanwhile, Gregory was visible in the newspapers over racist incidents.

As a Baháʼí

Encountering the religion At the Treasury Department, Gregory met Thomas H. Gibbs, with whom he formed a close relationship. Gibbs, while not being a Baháʼí himself, shared information about the religion to Gregory, and Gregory attended a lecture by Lua Getsinger, a leading Baháʼí, in 1907. In that meeting he met Pauline Hannen and her husband who invited him to many other meetings through the next couple of years, and Gregory was much affected by the behavior of the Hannens and the religion after having become disillusioned with Christianity. He also wrote to ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who responded to Gregory that he had high expectations of Gregory in the realm of race relations. The Hannens asked that Gregory attend some organizational meetings to help consult on opportunities for the religion. With such meetings the practical aspects of integration with some Baháʼís became crystallized while for others it became a strain they had to work to overcome.

Gregory initiated a major trip through the South. He traveled to Richmond, Virginia; Durham and other locations in North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina, the city of his family and childhood; and Macon, Georgia, where he told people about the religion.

Pilgrimage In late 1910 ʻAbdu'l-Bahá invited Gregory to go on pilgrimage.

He held his first public meeting on the religion after his return, and published an article under his own name in the Washington Bee in November, inspired by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in Britain that month. He was elected to a Washington Baháʼí working committee. first he spoke at Howard University to over 1000 students, faculty, administrators and visitors — an event commemorated in 2009. He attended a reception by the Persian Charge-de-Affairs and the Turkish Ambassador.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá spoke at Bethel Literary and Historical Society where Gregory had long been involved and served as president.

Later in June ʻAbdu'l-Bahá addressed the NAACP national convention in Chicago, which was reported by W. E. B. Du Bois in The Crisis.

Gregory and Louisa A. M. Mathew Gregory, likely their 1912 marriage portrait Gregory and Louisa Mathew had deepened their relationship. They married on September 27, 1912, becoming the first known Baháʼí interracial couple. Hannen and Gregory were subsequently elected to a committee focused on the American South and Gregory focused on two approaches - presenting the religion's teachings on race issue to social leaders as well as to the general public - and initiated his next more extensive trip from 1919 to 1921 often with Roy Williams, an African-American Baháʼí from New York City. During 1920 a pilgrim returned from seeing ʻAbdu'l-Bahá with a focus on initiating conferences on race issues called "Race Amity Conferences" and Gregory consulted by letter on how to begin. The first one was held May 1921 in Washington, D.C.

Gregory met Josiah Morse of the University of South Carolina.

In 1922 Gregory was the first African American to be elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, a nine-person body to which he would be repeatedly elected in 1924, 1927, 1932, 1934 and 1946. His correspondence and activities were often covered in local newspapers in the US and beyond.

In 1924 Gregory toured the country to numerous speaking engagements. He often appeared with Alain LeRoy Locke, a fellow Baháʼí and prominent African-American thinker of the Harlem Renaissance.

Gregory's father died in 1929. He had praised Gregory for his work, marriage, and principles; although he never converted, he also was known to hand out Gregory's pamphlets. He traveled from the winter of 1944 through 1945 among five southern states.

Later years In December 1948, Gregory suffered a stroke while returning from a friend's funeral.

Gregory was among Shoghi Effendi's first round of appointees to the distinguished rank named Hands of the Cause. Memorial observances of Gregory's death were among the first events of the newly arrived Baháʼís and first converts in Uganda. The Baháʼí radio station WLGI is named after Gregory: the Louis Gregory Institute. The Louis Gregory Preschool in Lesotho Africa is named for him. The Louis G. Gregory Bahá'í Museum in Charleston South Carolina is a memorial to the life and work of its namesake.