Civil Rights Movement but defines another approach to the problem, and proceeded according to its teachings. The first mention in relation to the history of the religion came in the 1860s in a newspaper article. Following this the first individual from South Carolina to find the religion was Louis Gregory in 1909, followed by individuals inside the state. Communities of Baháʼís were soon operating in North Augusta, Columbia and Greenville struggled with segregation culture through the 1950s externally and internally. However, in the 1969-1973 period, a very remarkable and somewhat unsustainable period of conversions to the religion on the basis of a meeting of Christian and Baháʼí religious ideas established a basis of community across several counties - notably Marion, Williamsburg, and Dillon, served by the Louis Gregory Institute and its radio station WLGI but also across the wider area. That community continues and has gathered news coverage as part of the second largest religion in South Carolina. Alaska Alaska is unusual in that it is not an independent nation recognized by the United Nations, and yet has a National Spiritual Assembly. Its specific statistics are not published, and are often not broken out in non-Baháʼí statistics of the US in general. Hawai'i The Baháʼí community in Hawai'i had its origins when Hawaiian-born Agnes Alexander, who became a Baháʼí in Paris in 1900, returned to the islands in 1901. Similar to Alaska, the Baháʼís of Hawai'i have an independent National Spiritual Assembly from that of the US, though it is itself one of the 50 United States. Independent statistics have not been published. Criticism Juan Cole was an American Baháʼí professor of history who resigned from the religion in 1996 after conflicts with the Baháʼís. Cole went on to critically attack the Baháʼí Faith in several books and articles written from 1998-2000, describing a prominent Baháʼí as "inquisitor" and "bigot", and describing Baháʼí institutions as socially isolating, dictatorial, and controlling, and with financial irregularities. Soon after his resignation, Cole created an email list and website called H-Bahai, which became a repository of both primary source material and critical analysis on the religion. Notable American Baháʼís Outside the religion in general society prominent Baháʼís have been social and civic leaders Alain LeRoy Locke, Patricia Locke, Dorothy Wright Nelson and Layli Miller-Muro, entertainers Seals and Crofts, Dizzy Gillespie, Rainn Wilson, Andy Grammer and among academics Suheil Bushrui, and Dwight W. Allen. See