population and continues unabated to this day.... What's more, the opposition to intermarriage has heightened the interest and solidified the feelings of those who resent the injunction of racial distinction in their private and personal affairs." He believed that laws restricting personal choice in a mate violated the constitution and that the "decision of two intelligent people to mutual love and self-sacrifice should not be a matter of public concern." Abbott also published a short-lived periodical called Abbott's Monthly, whose contributor included Chester Himes and Richard Wright. The Defender actively promoted the northward migration of Black Southerners, particularly to Chicago; its columns not only reported on, but encouraged the Great Migration. Baháʼí Faith In 1912, Abbott met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, head of the Baháʼí Faith, through covering a talk of his during his stay in Chicago during his journeys in the West. By 1924 Abbott and his wife were listed as attending Baháʼí events in Chicago. After inventing the fictional character "Bud Billiken" with David Kellum for articles in the Defender, Abbott established the Bud Billiken Club. In 1929 Abbott and Kellum founded the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic. It became an occasion for African Americans to celebrate their pride and connections. Abbott was seeking an atmosphere free of race prejudice. Even in religious communities, he sometimes found that mixed-race African Americans who were light-skinned sometimes also demonstrated prejudice against those who were darker. Abbott officially joined the Baháʼí Faith in 1934. He had found that its convention to elect its National Spiritual Assembly seemed free of prejudice. Final years and death In 1919, Illinois Governor Frank Lowden appointed Abbott to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The commission conducted studies about the changes resulting from the Great Migration; in one period, 5,000 African Americans were arriving in the city every week. The Commission collected data to assess the population and published the book, The Negro in Chicago. Though some of his stepfather Sengstacke's relatives in Germany became Nazis in the 1930s and later, Abbott continued correspondence and economic aid to those who had accepted him and his father's family. He also assisted descendants of Captain Charles Stevens, the former owner of his enslaved birth father before emancipation. With his wealth, Abbott aided the Stevens descendants in Georgia during the Depression, and paid for the education of their children. Abbott died of Bright's disease in 1940 in Chicago. He was buried in