South Carolina is home to the second-largest Baha'i community in the United States. With 16,000 Baha'is, South Carolina ranks just behind California, home to 19,000 Baha'is. North Carolina has only 4,500 Baha'is, according to the religion's Wilmette, Ill., headquarters. The recent growth of the Baha'i community in the Triangle has more to do with migration from other parts of the country than with a search for racial harmony. But the new Baha'i Unity Center hopes to make converts too.
Members see the new center as a potential catalyst for racial reconciliation.
They plan to hold seminars on race, open a bookstore and library in the basement, and offer parenting classes, maybe even a computer room for children from the neighborhood's poorer districts. They tend not to get publicity. The low-key style characterizes the new center's first initiative. The Baha'is can't pay for the transportation, but they'll be happy to unbolt the pews from the floor. If it was in a very rich neighborhood in North Raleigh, some people might feel uncomfortable.