Johnnie Colemon of Chicago attended Unity Training School from 1952 to 1955. In a 2000 interview with New Thought magazine, she recalled the situation for black students: “Every day we read out of Daily Word about love and how much we loved each other. But before the sun would go down every day, I had to be on my way to Kansas City.” During her final year at the school, she threatened to quit unless officials provided housing on campus. Fellow students circulated a petition for her to stay on grounds and changed the policy. A house on campus was used to accommodate black students.

Despite public criticism, Unity excluded black students any overnight accommodations at Unity Farm until 1955. The text seen here is from the program guide:

Negro Students:
The housing committee of the Training School will help Negro students make their living arrangements in Kansas City if they will communicate with the Registrar of the school in advance. Convenient transportation to and from the Village by bus is available to these students. Meals will be served to them at Unity Inn.

We hope in time to have living accommodations in Unity Village for our Negro students. We ask your prayers that the Unity building program will continue in divine order.

As racial tensions roiled the nation in the 1960s, Unity Village worked through its own segregation issues. Accounts differ on when and how the pool was integrated. One story says the swimming pool was integrated after Rev. Johnnie Colemon demanded that her Youth of Unity group be allowed entrance to the pool.

In 1968, the year the assassination of Martin Luther King rocked the world, the Rev. Johnnie Colemon became the first vice president of the Association of Unity Churches International. She went on to become president of the Association, serving until 1970. She had founded Christ Universal Temple in Chicago in 1956. In 1974 she founded the Universal Foundation for Better Living, which now has 21 member churches.

In 1978 an article in Ebony magazine brought to light the fact that Unity did not have a reflective percentage of African Americans in its ministries. As a result, the Rev. Ruth Mosley launched a training program for Unity ministers in Detroit, Michigan. Since its founding in 1979, more than 100 students have received training through Unity Urban Ministerial School.

Photo provided by AUCI (now Unity Worldwide Ministries)

Continuing its tradition of embracing diversity, in 2005 the Association named James Trapp CEO, the first African American to hold that position.

Photo provided by AUCI (now Unity Worldwide Ministries)

In 2007 SpiritPath (Unity Village Retreats and Events) offered a landmark retreat designed to bring together persons of heritage rooted in Africa to explore spirituality and embrace transformative spiritual principles. The first Afrocentric Retreat drew 178 participants to Unity Village.


To read Part one of this series click here.

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