Bridge the Racial Divide

This video is an excellent source of ideas for addressing racial prejudice in any community.   It also demonstrates that through perseverance and sincere effort, the greatest challenge our world faces today can be overcome.

The Power of Race Unity “Help America Bridge the Racial Divide” presents the experiences of members of the Bahá’í communities in the difficult work of establishing unity among diverse peoples.   It highlights members of the Bahá’í Faith, who regard the unity of the entire human race as one of its most basic beliefs.   This video is intended to serve as a catalyst for intimate discussions of race unity among all people.

This video powerfully presents the diversity of the Bahá’í community, introducing several of its members who are from many different racial and national backgrounds.   It shows their struggle and describes decades of work in race unity and the elimination of prejudice of all kinds.

In the video, country singer Dan Seals notes that most of country music is white and mostly Christian.   He uses his professional music videos to talk about the beliefs which he holds dear, like the elimination of prejudice, and he shows a diversity that is unique to country music.

Another segment features fourteen-year old Anisa Kintz from Conway, South Carolina, who organized a series of national children’s conferences on race unity entitled Calling All Colors.   Anisa says, “My vision of race unity is when kids can go to school and look across the lunchroom and won’t see a black table on this side and a white table on that side.   Race unity is really a kids’ issue.”
After the success of Calling All Colors, many school districts around the nation have inquired into setting up their own such programs.

Also featured are the 32 Bahá’í Youth Workshops performing across America.   The members are kids, not professional dancers or actors, who come together to perform dances and songs about race unity in their communities.   They talk about everyday challenges for all youth and how to solve those challenges in a spiritual forum.

The final segment highlights University of Michigan Professor Richard Thomas as he conducts a university-wide discussion program to teach acceptance of diversity to college faculty and students.   One student says, “Before the conversations I found myself really irritated with other races because I thought they were just so different from me that we couldn’t relate, but after talking to one another I realized that that’s not true. I realized that we’re all just people.”