Sunday, June 14, 1998

For Baha'is, interracial marriage is a way to chip away at prejudice

By CHRISTINE WICKER / The Dallas Morning News

Rhonda Palmer is white. Her husband, Walter, is black.

Their religion teaches that God is particularly pleased with such interracial unions. Not everybody shares that certainty, of course.

On their honeymoon in 1973, a Mississippi sheriff ran them out of the state. Later, a woman who was curious about the offspring of such a match came to their door, asking for a look at their children. For years, every time an elderly neighbor came out of her house, she complained loudly about the Palmers' bad influence on the community.

In each case, the Palmers proceeded calmly, secure in Baha'i teachings. A hallmark of their faith is the elimination of racial prejudice. "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens," according to Baha'u'llah, prophet-founder of the Baha'i faith.

In Mississippi, the Palmers honored the sheriff's order by making sure the sun didn't set before they crossed the state line, but "we thought it was hilarious. In those days we thought everything was funny. We were so in love," said Rhonda Palmer.

They happily showed their two daughters to the curious woman, whose own child was contemplating an interracial marriage. For the racist neighbor, they shoveled snow and shared summer strawberries from their garden. When they finally left the neighborhood, she told them how sad she was to see them go.

"We've always considered everything we do as educational for other people," said Rhonda Palmer.

"If we just walked down the street, people would see two races getting along," said Walter Palmer.

The Palmers' easygoing response to other people's rejection is fairly typical of the Baha'i way. Embracing racial unity works and makes sense when you believe it, says Dr. Robert Henderson, secretary-general of the National Governing Body of the Baha'i faith in the United States.

"You realize that other folks haven't gotten there yet, but you'll help them," said Henderson, who is black and has been married to a white woman for 27 years.

Interracial marriages in the United States account for less than 3 percent of the total, according to 1996 census figures, which probably understate the actual number, according to the Statistical Assessment Service in Washington, D.C.

"Interestingly, from 1980 to 1996 the number of married couples rose 10 percent, while the number of interracial couples jumped 100 percent," said senior analyst Tom Riley.

The tradition of intermarriage is an old one in this young religion. In the early part of this century, Baha'u'llah's son, Abdu'l-Baha, encouraged the marriage of a white woman and a black man as an example for other believers.

Tessy Baugher is a Kenyan black woman married to a white man from Alabama. Baugher didn't exactly plan to marry someone of another race, she said, but she always liked the idea. "Even as I was growing up, I thought it would be wonderful to have an interracial marriage. To be able to live out this teaching and to be a living example," she said.

She and her husband, Vince, were reared in the Baha'i faith, and their parents were supportive from the beginning of their courtship. Her husband's four sisters all married men of other races.

Henderson is also from a Baha'i family. "What that meant was that I had an intimate relationship with people who were black, white, red, yellow," he said. "My expectation is that there aren't limits on relations. ... My expectation is that you like everybody, and you marry who you love."

For his future wife, whose parents were Irish Catholic, it wasn't so easy. But Baha'i faith requires that couples get permission from both sets of parents before marriage.

"I think that they were a little bit surprised that they had the power of consent. Their position was, ÔWait a year and if you still want to get married, do so,' " he said.

"They didn't expect that we would obey, and they were won over by that."

Mrs. Henderson's father has since died, but her 84-year-old mother goes on vacation with them every year. "Her mother and I are the best of friends," he said.

The couple's three children have benefited from having parents of different races, said Robert Henderson. "Our kids were not taught about barriers. They were taught about the absence of barriers," he said. "It makes you see things fundamentally differently because you see the points of unity."

The Palmers' two daughters have had varying experiences. One of the girls, who is light-skinned, attended a white suburban school where racist jokes were sometimes told by kids who didn't know her parentage. "She hated to confront people and that caused terrible turmoil in her heart," said Rhonda Palmer.

Having the support of the Baha'i community, where being interracial is considered normal and good, has been of tremendous value, said the Palmers.

"It helps to have the assurance that this is of God," said Walter Palmer. "It helps to balance out the rest of society, which sees our marriage as an aberration."

The kind of overt disapproval the Palmers faced in the '70s has pretty much faded out, say the couples. The Baughers, who live in Denton, Texas, and have been married four years, can't remember attracting anything worse than stares. More commonly, they get compliments.

"People in grocery stores come up and see the rings and say, ÔAre you guys married?' and ÔWe think that's great that the races get together,' " said Vince Baugher. "It gives us a chance to explain. It's a great thing."

The other couples have had the same kind of experiences. "To a certain extent, any time someone breaks boundaries, it's an encouragement to everyone else," said Robert Henderson. "You just start thinking more expansively."

In some ways, being of different races and nationalities has been a plus, said Vince Baugher. "You go into the marriage expecting to have challenges and expecting to have to work on understanding the other persons' point of view, so when that comes it isn't necessarily a surprise."

But most of time, race isn't an issue, they say. "In interracial marriage, interracial is just an adjective," said Rhonda Palmer.

"To me it's physically attractive just to see our hands holding, the ebony and ivory," said Vince Baugher. "I love the contrast on the outside. While on the inside, we're so much the same."

(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

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