African-American Vaishnava Hindu guru Die's

first African-American Vaishnava Hindu guru

I never new there were African American, Hindu's well there's a first. I remmber about 4 years ago going to a hindu temple, with a freind named Aravindt. I think I do recall one black person there! Well this article is about the passing of the First African American "GURU". Its the Hara Krishna movement so I am not sure if that counts!


First African-American Vaishnava Hindu guru

Bhakti Tirtha Swami, a guru and Governing Body Commissioner of the worldwide Hare Krishna movement, passed away of complications from melanoma cancer on June 27, at Gita Nagari, the Krishna community in Pennsylvania. He was 55 years old.

Bhakti Tirtha Swami was the world’s first African-American Vaishnava Hindu guru. Born as John E. Favors to an evangelical Baptist family in Cleveland, Ohio in 1950, Bhakti Tirtha Swami took part in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights movement during his youth. After earning his psychology degree from Princeton University in 1972, he began studying the 5,000-year-old Bhagavad Gita and other Vedic scriptures. He soon became a disciple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and brought the ancient Vaishnava tradition to the west in 1965.