BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY The Man Who Would Be God
On February 6, 1914 a black preacher traveling across the south was arrested on charges of lunacy in Valdosta, Georgia. He claimed to have arrived on Earth whole, in a puff of smoke. He refused to tell anything of his history and when asked to identify himself he merely claimed that he was the physical manifestation of the heavenly father. Having no known name, and refusing to provide one, the man was charged under the name "John Doe alias God," and a better encapsulation of this man's life story can hardly be found.
The charges had come as result of the preacher's poor interactions with local religious leaders, as well as from members of the community whose spouses had come to believe in the teachings of this radical but charismatic man. Teachings such as celibacy and temperance, as well as his most famous and controversial claim that he was the physical manifestation of God. This arrest was the first time the public would become aware of Reverend Major Jealous Divine, or "Father Divine" as his followers lovingly called him.
Little is known about the early life of Father Divine, due primarily to the fact the the man himself found his history irrelevant and focused only on his own teachings and followers. Most accepted among historians is the theory that his name was George Baker, the son of a share-cropper and a freed slave, who probably worked as a gardener in Baltimore as a young man. His recorded career began in 1899 when we became the assistant to a soft-spoken preacher named Samuel Morris, who also claimed divinity and referred to himself as Father Jehovah. During this period Divine went by the pseudonym "The Messenger," and served as a Jesus figure to Morris's God. In 1912 a three-man ministry that had developed around Morris, Divine, and another man who called himself "Reverend Bishop John The Vine," collapsed under the weight of spiritual debate. Choosing to denounce both the idea that Morris was God, as well as John The Vine's position that the spirit of God was in all men, Divine struck out on his own. He claimed his own divinity for the first time and began traveling throughout the south, gaining a modest, all-black, following.
His arrest in Valdosta had actually helped to draw supporters from around the area, with even a few white visitors calling on him for advice and blessings. He was found mentally sound, despite his "maniacal tendencies," and left the area soon after he was released; relocating to Brooklyn with a small group of followers and establishing a commune in a middle-class black apartment building. It was around this time that he met and married a woman much older than he: one of his followers named Penniniah, whose early life is as shrouded in mystery as Divine's. In 1919 he adopted the full title "Reverend Major Jealous Divine" and gained some attention for his strict rules banning gambling, sex, tobacco, and alcohol consumption, as well as separating men and women for all but business reasons.
The movement relocated to Sayville, Long Island in 1919 when a feud between German property owner's culminated in one advertising his house specifically to colored buyers in an attempt to drive down property values. The time in Sayville led to one of the largest expansions of the Father Divine ministry, and followers would gather in throngs for his sermons and banquets. This sort of activity was unwelcome by the citizens of Sayville and charges that Divine was running a harem and partaking in promiscuous sexual activity were commonly filed, but always found as baseless. During an especially raucous evening the police, fearing a riot, took 78 people total into custody. Forty-six plead guilty and were charged with five-dollar fees, all of which were paid by Father Divine in the form of a $500 dollar bill. The lawsuits that followed for the thirty-some people who resisted the charges (among which was Pininniah) led to sensationalist reporting around the nation and world and put Father Divine in the limelight more prominently then he ever had been or ever would be again. During the trials the "International Peace Movement" gave a formal name to the movement for the first time.
Father Divine, The March of Time, Harlem, New York, 1930s
Heaven in Harlem
The actual trial did not take place until May 24, 1932, which allowed for several years for Father Divine's celebrity to blossom. His following grew into the thousands and hotels were routinely rented out for his speeches and gatherings. Branches of his movement sprouted up in other states and the public was forced to consider the man who claimed to be God as more than a simple oddity or fad. When the trial actually came around requests that it be moved outside of Suffolk County due to potential jury bias were granted and the trial took place in Nassau County before Justice Lewis J. Smith. He was found guilty on June 5 but but the jury asked for leniency on the preacher's behalf. Justice Smith chose not to grant this leniency and instead called Divine a fraud, issuing the maximum sentence for disturbing the peace, one year in prison and a $500 fine.
One of the most sensationalized stories that arose from this period and one of the most noted events in Divine's life occurred when Smith died of a heart attack only a few days later on June 9, 1932. Father Divine was widely reported to have commented, "I hated to do it." Newspapers failed to mention that the judge had previous heart problems and instead chose to highlight the concept that the man's death was "divine retribution."
After his attorneys secured release through an appeal on June 25, 1932, he declared that the founding documents of theUnited States of America, such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, were inspired and became increasingly patriotic.
After the trial Divine and movement settled in Harlem, purchasing several hotels which were converted into communes called "Heavens." These communities helped people find work and provided them with resources for income and discount stores that operated on a cash-only system, which worked quite well and created an astonishingly vibrant and viable community throughout the Depression. This seemingly miraculous economic system not only supported the followers of the Peace Movement (called "angels" by Divine) but also supported his extravagant lifestyle, such as his love for expensive suits, cars, and banquets. During this time estimates suggest that Father Divine had tens of thousands of followers throughout the country, with International Peace Movement branches opening up across the nation.
It was during this massive boom in Divine's popularity that his reputation was marred by several events. One of his followers, John Hunt (or John the Revelator as he preferred to be call) kidnapped a seventeen year old girl named Delight Jewett, had sexual relations with her, and brainwashed her into believing she was the Virgin Mary. Though Father Divine publicly supported his arrest and incarceration the whole event was the source of terrible publicity. Bad publicity also arose from the fact that Divine reportedly only visited his wife Peninniah once while she was ill in Kingston, despite her claims that she was in no serious danger of death. The final straw came when a man was stabbed while attempting to deliver a summons to Father Divine. The religious leader fled, and was eventually found and extradited from Connecticut.
Lawsuits filed by former members who claimed they had never been able to get their invested money back from Divine when they left the church, various claims of fraud and sexual misconduct with members, as well as an apparent vendetta by William Randolph Hearst, only served to further strangle what goodwill he had managed to accumulate.
One such lawsuit, filed by Verinda Brown, was finally resolved in 1942 with the judge ordering Divine to pay back the woman the total $4,476 dollars she had claimed she was owed. The man who claimed to be God fled to Pennsylvania, still returning to New York on Sundays, due to a law forbidding the delivery of subpoenas on that day.
Peninniah died after Divine moved to Philadelphia and he was soon remarried, this time to a white Canadian woman named Edna Rose Ritchings, whom Divine claimed was a miraculous reincarnation of Peninniah. To combat claims that he was violating his own strict doctrines of celibacy he assigned a black member of the movement to accompany her at all time.
Publicity for Father Divine faded more and more throughout the forties and fifties and was often only reported on as an interesting American fraud. His claims of divinity never wavered and his followers never shied from the belief that he was, in fact, God. Eventually he was given the property of Woodmont in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania by a follower and it was there that he spent most of his remaining years. The growing economy of the 1950's led to a marked decrease in membership for the International Peace Movement, whose members had been primarily lower-income.
Father Divine was unable to take part in the growing Civil Rights Movement, despite being considered by most to be one of its primary early inspirations. His ministries and communities had always operated on the concepts of equality and non-discrimination and his multicultural fellowships and initiatives did much to shape the ideology of many civil rights advocates. Father Divine, however, always denied being black due to his hatred of religious labels and his refusal to allow himself, as God, do be described in such human terms.
Divine died of natural causes at Woodmont on September 10, 1965 but is still referred to in the present tense by his widow and remaining followers. Mother S. A. Divine, as Edna Rose Ritchings came to be called, took over leadership of the organization after her husband's death and continues to run the organization to this day. Membership is increasingly small, mostly due to the church members inability to break their vows of celibacy, but the International Peace Movement still owns several properties around the United States.
Father Divine and his followers may have been seen as radicals and religious fanatics back when their membership was strong, and would most likely be considered a cult today. In fact, many consider Divine to be one of the nations first cult leaders, much to the dismay of his believers. Regardless of the validity of Divine's claims of godliness his contributions to the communities he helped carry through the Depression and to the Civil Rights Movement which built so much from his organization's teachings are inarguable positive contributions to the world he claimed to have been merely visiting from some other, more celestial, plane of existence.
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