Palmdale, CA, June 13, 2004-The Bahá’í communities of Antelope Valley will observe Race Unity Day on in Sunday June 13th, 2004 with a program at Palmdale City Youth Library (38510 N. Sierra Highway) at 2:00 p.m. People of every race, culture, religion and nationality are welcome to join in a celebration of the unity of mankind.

The program will include prayers, readings, music and video presentation. The keynote will be given by Darren Parker, the president of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Task Force. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Moving Beyond Tolerance”.

The purpose of this day is to focus attention on what Bahá’ís believe is the most challenging moral issue facing this country — racial prejudice. Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, made the oneness of humanity under God, and thus the elimination of all forms of prejudice the central point of His teachings. Expounding on this theme, the Universal House of Justice, the international governing body of the Bahá’ís, in its 1985 address to the peoples of the world, “The Promise of World Peace”, cites racism as one of the major obstacles to achieving world peace:

“Racism, one of the most baneful and persistent evils, is a major barrier to peace. Its practice perpetrates too outrageous a violation of the dignity of human beings to be countenanced under any pretext. Racism retards the unfoldment of the boundless potentialities of its victims, corrupts its perpetrators, and blights human progress. Recognition of the oneness of mankind, implemented by appropriate legal measures, must be universally upheld if this problem is to be overcome.”

The Bahá’í Faith is an independent world religion with adherents in virtually every country. More than 2000 ethnic groups and tribes are represented in Bahá’í membership. There are about 6 million Bahá’ís worldwide and approximately 170,000 in the United States.

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