In 1919, the remaining letters of the ʻAbdu'l-Bahá arrived. He used the example of St. Gregory the Illuminator as a model of effort to spread the religion. Hannen and Gregory were subsequently elected to a committee focused on the American South and Gregory focused on two approaches - presenting the religion's teachings on race issue to social leaders as well as to the general public - and initiated his next more extensive trip from 1919 to 1921 often with Roy Williams, an African-American Baháʼí from New York City. During 1920 a pilgrim returned from seeing ʻAbdu'l-Bahá with a focus on initiating conferences on race issues called "Race Amity Conferences" and Gregory consulted by letter on how to begin. The first one was held May 1921 in Washington DC. Gregory met Josiah Morse of the University of South Carolina. Starting in the 1930s, several Baháʼís speakers began to appear at university-based events. Gregory developed a friendship with Samuel Chiles Mitchell, president of the University of South Carolina (1909–1913), and shared that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's views he heard at the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration affected him in his interracial work into the 1930s. Gregory also faced increasing opposition. In January 1921 he spoke in Columbia, SC, where some African-American ministers warned against his message and religion. Others invited Gregory to speak to their congregations. One of the ministers who opposed him had assisted in getting the first declared Baháʼí in the state committed to an institution for the mentally insane. In 1922 Gregory was the first African American to be elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, a nine-person body to which he would be repeatedly elected in 1924, 1927, 1932, 1934 and 1946. His correspondence and activities were often covered in local newspapers in the US and beyond. In 1924 Gregory toured the country to numerous speaking engagements. He often appeared with Alain LeRoy Locke, a fellow Baháʼí and prominent African-American thinker of the Harlem Renaissance. Gregory's father died in 1929. He had praised Gregory for his work, marriage, and principles; although he never converted, he also was known to hand out Gregory's pamphlets. An estimated one thousand people attended the funeral, where Gregory read Baháʼí prayers. In the 1930s Gregory worked in intra- and international developments of the religion. In December 1931 he helped start a Baháʼí study class in Atlanta. He lived in Nashville,