A Brief History of the Baha'i Faith in Chattanooga
Additional historical information will be added as it further discovered.
A Personal Recollection by Mary K. Radpour (related during March 2020) Albert & Ruth James come to Chattanooga (early 1940s) I am going to sketch out the Baha’i history of Chattanooga as it was told to me and recorded in various notes to myself. Today I wrote a note to Bob James and to Dermot McHugh, asking if they can confirm the segment about Albert and Ruth James being in Chattanooga. Albert was Bob James’ uncle, and Dermot was Albert’s son-in-law. I knew Albert well as I was his assistant when he was an auxiliary Board member. (the first in a handful of assistants in the world). My understanding is that Albert wanted to train as a Tuskegee airman, but he was sent instead to Chattanooga because he was a teacher, and the Army needed black teachers to train black troops. Albert taught literacy classes here, and Ruth was a homemaker. When they lived here, they hosted Sarah Martin Pereira, whom I recall told me that she used to come to Chattanooga to speak at a local hotel meeting room rented by the friends and advertised in the paper. There was a very active Baha’i couple from Memphis who often came here to assist in that effort of proclamation of the teachings. Their names were Odessa and John Myers; I do recall that they were African-American and both were very tall and had advanced degrees. This is speculation, but because Louis Gregory was so active in TN in his visits to Fisk, I would be very surprised if he was not also a visitor to Chattanooga and to Knoxville College in Knoxville. It would also be reasonable to conclude that Hand of the Cause Dorothy Baker may have come to Chattanooga on speaking tours in the South. (Documentation of Gregory and Baker trips here might be available from the Archives office in Wilmette.) After the war, a number of years passed before there were Baha’is resident in Chattanooga again. Among the first were Thom Thompson and his wife Lucia, who lived in Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain; one dramatic event which occurred during their time here was the accidental destruction of their home by fire. Thom told me that they were here for several years and that there was also a Baha’i couple here with whom they held the Feast, named Peyton and Anne Brien, whose presence here is confirmed in 1965 by the archives.
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![]() Rahmatu'lláh Muhájir (1923-1979), Muhájir was elected as a member of the Regional Spiritual Assembly in 1957. In October that year, he was appointed a Hand of the Cause of God by Shoghi Effendi, the Head of the Faith. In 1958, he and his family left Indonesia to travel all over the world, inspiring mass teaching campaigns in several countries.
He died in Ecuador in 1979.
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Added historical notes from in and around Chattanooga**
Editor: 2020 0802 |
![]() George Townsend (1856-1951) George spent many years near Ballinasloe, County Galway, where he was incumbent of Ahascragh and Archdeacon of Clonfert. Around this time he achieved recognition with "The Alter on the Hearth (1927)" and more widely with "The Genius of Ireland (1930)". He then moved to Dublin where he became the Canon St. Patrick's Cathedral. However, his lasted for only a short time before his leaving the Catholic Church.
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