Stemming from his anthropological field work among black religious groups in Philadelphia in the early 1940s, Arthur Huff Fauset believed it was possible to determine the likely direction that mainstream black religious leadership would take in the future, a direction that later indeed manifested itself in the civil rights movement. The American black church, according to Fauset and other contemporary researchers, provided the one place where blacks could experiment without hindrance in activities such as business, politics, social reform, and social expression. With detailed primary accounts of these early spiritual movements and their beliefs and practices, Black Gods of the Metropolis reveals the fascinating origins of such significant modern African American religious groups as the Nation of Islam as well as the role of lesser known and even forgotten churches in the history of the black community.In her new foreword, historian Barbara Dianne Savage discusses the relationship between black intellectuals and black religion, in particular the relationship between black social scientists and black religious practices during Fauset's time. She then explores the complexities of that relationship and its impact on the intellectual and political history of African American religion in general.
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SING HAPPY is a tall, dark-brown-skinned, well-preserved Negro of about seventy years of age, with short gray hair and good teeth. He has a very strong baritone voice which is well known among the followers of Father Divine who join in the singing at Rockland Palace. One day many years ago Sing Happy heard Father call out to him in his apartment, āHappy!ā He had been busy doing some small chore when suddenly he heard the voice call out to him. For a moment he could not imagine what or who it was. He rushed to the stairway to see, but there was no one. Then it dawned on himāFather! Some of his brothers assured him also it was Father. Several years ago, when it became necessary for him to register in order to vote, he realized he would have to have two names. Father had called him Happy, his spiritual name, because that denoted his type. But what should be his first name? He was in a quandary. Then it came to him. He was always singing. Of course! Sing Happy! And that is how he got his name. Sing Happy had traveled all around on the railroad, especially in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati.
He had been sick nearly all his life. To begin with, his mother, who had six children, was a very sick woman when she bore the last three, of which he was one. They were weakly and had scrofula. At nine years of age he became badly afflicted with rheumatism. At the age of sixteen he contracted gonorrhea from a prostitute in his first sexual experience, and from then on this and syphilis kept him in constant ill health and misery, with frequent operations for stricture and stomach ulcers, and great difficulty in urination and defecation. In one operation a hemorrhage occurred, and in another some of the intestinal tract was removed. His second wife secretly raised an insurance policy on him, so sure was she that he would die. But it was she who died in 1918 and he has not married since, although up to the time he came to Father Divine he was always finding some woman to live with from time to time.
Meantime he had joined a number of churches, chiefly Baptist, but they did him no good, for several reasons: there was too much money collection with nothing in return, and too much wickedness by the members and the clergy. The preachers could only offer one a better world in the future, that is, heaven.
He read his Bible and learned that the good should have everlasting life, that Jesus prayed for the continued life of his anointed, and that He kept them from evil. But all the preachers could do about it was to promise one a reward in heaven. He couldnāt understand it and it didnāt satisfy him.
He was living with two fellows who went with two sisters who used to visit them each week. The three of them lived together like a happy family. They trusted each other completely. Then they all separated and it was several years before he saw one of the sisters, but by this time she and her man had joined Father Divine at Sayville; so that even though they were married, they now lived separately and were brother and sister.
They spoke rapturously about Father Divine. Sing Happy still trusted these people completely. He had read some reports of the persecutions of Father Divine at Sayville, and he was impressed by what he read. He told them, āTell Father Divine I am coming to his services and become a follower.ā
He was quite sure Father Divine was not a man, just from what he had read and heard, especially since Father Divine gave food and no one could tell where it began and ended. So he visited Father Divine in New York, and he joined. He has not missed a night in seven years except when he has been somewhere where there is not a Father Divine mission.
Sing Happy says Father Divine cures. Many rich people have been cured by Father Divine. Frequently they get their cure although they are thousands of miles away. The big Duesenburg car which he rides was given him by an elderly white woman from California who had to wear braces on her legs but was cured by Father Divine.
Sing Happy says that Father Divine raises the dead. The doctors pronounce them corpses. They even place sheets over their faces. They go away a short while and lo! when they return, the dead are resurrected and are up eating.
Thus Mrs. āāā, the wife of attorney āāā. She died just a few weeks ago. But she returned to Rockland Palace to testify. She was white as a ghost and very weak, but she testified how the doctors pronounced her dead and Father Divine came to her in a dream and breathed life into her body. She is up and about now. Sing Happy was at her house only a few days ago fixing some upholstery and she was quite spry.
Sing Happy says that when Father Divine was taken to court a few months ago seven judges feigned illness to keep from hearing his case. They feared they might die as Judge Smith2 did, or as the clerk of the registry on 115th Street. After Father Divine had got a verdict from the Supreme Court saying that his followers might be registered to vote under their new names, one big fat clerk on 115th Street refused to register them notwithstanding. Father Divine went up to him and, pointing his finger at him, said, āYou must obey the law. You must register my people.ā
The clerk nonchalantly blew smoke rings and said, law or no law, he was not going to register people with names like those. This went on for a few minutes; then the clerk had to go upstairs. Within a half hour after his refusal to register the voters he had died of a heart attack.
Sing Happy says Father Divine takes care of everything. He gives his followers a place to sleep in all his cities. He feeds them and keeps them for less than five dollars a week. He gives them clothes. He has their clothes cleaned and pressed for them. He has caretakers for his larger extensions, but in his small extensions each person takes care of his own bed.
When you need a haircut it costs ten cents, a shave, five cents, a shoeshine, three cents, an ordinary meal, ten cents, a chicken dinner, fifteen cents.
Sing Happy says that Father Divine encourages you to work. He is glad to have you keep your own money and spend it as you see fit. It is a lie that he has you turn in your money to him. He arranges for your trips to various cities; you have your railway fare or your bus fare all paid; your hotel accommodations and food are provided.
Sing Happy says the whites are more considerate of him than his own. He is referring to intellectual Negroes. All the near-by colleges are constantly sending delegations to observe, but his own kind only criticize and scoff.
Sing Happy says if anyone finds any money it is turned over to Father Divine; and then if no one claims it (it is advertised in the New Day), it is used to provide excursions for poor children.
Sing Happy says Father Divine encourages business. His followers are in all kinds of business.
Sing Happy says people are always trying to āframeā Father Divine, especially to get money. But he owns nothing. That is why he has to stay in New York City (court order).3 He may leave for twenty-three hours and twenty-eight minutes, and of course if he wanted to he could leave for as long as he wished. But he came to fulfill the law, not to break it. Consequently he carries out the law and remains there where there is plenty to do.
Sing Happy says that to become a member you come to meetings and make yourself known. You get acquainted and the other brothers see you and have a chance to size you up. If you wish, you can try a period of living with the brothers even without being a member, in order to see if you could like it and could accommodate yourself. Then if you like it and all goes well, you become a brother and live in an extension.
Sing Happy says every once in a while some scalawag gets in. He usually leaves of his own accord because he is not permitted to swear, drink, smoke, or have women, and he must have clean living habits. But sometimes it is necessary to advise him to go.
Sing Happy says Father Divine rules everything. In order to change your routine you must get Father Divineās permission. This permission Sing Happy would like to get in order to go to Kingston, New York, where a rich family wants him to do some temporary work. He has asked Father Divine for permission and is waiting to hear from him.
Sing Happy says he has been in at least twelve hospitals in New York City alone. But since seven years ago when he joined Father Divine he has not seen a doctor or taken one drop of medicine. His blood is all right. He has daily evacuation. His urethra is all right. He is able to eat anything at any time.
ORIGIN
The true history of Father Divine before he emerged in Sayville, Long Island, is as much a mystery today as it was in 1932 when certain residents of Long Island, interested in having him incarcerated for invading their hitherto exclusive precincts with his mission, attempted to reconstruct it in the courtroom. As a result of the prosecution, Supreme Court Justice Lewis J. Smith sentenced Father Divine to one year in the Suffolk County Jail, Long Island, and a fine of
500. Three days later Justice Smith died suddenly and unexpectedly. In the eyes of the followers of Father Divine, this was speedy substantiation of their claims that Father Divine is God.
There seems to be general agreement that he was once known by the name of George Baker (though he himself denies this); that he was born and raised in the Deep South, probably on an island off the coast of South Carolina; that he always had a flair for so-called mysticism, which early in his career resulted in a sentence to a chain gang in Georgia. It may have been this experience and others like it which conditioned his thinking so that in the movement which he heads there has been evolved a plan for a ārighteous governmentā in which there will be equality for all mankind, with the abolition of such evils as lynching and Jim Crow practices.
It is believed that Father Divine came north by stages, settling for a time in Baltimore. There under the name of Major J. Devine he opened a mission, where he distributed alms to the needy.
The early part of the depression of the thirties found him in Sayville, Long Island, where he had opened a lodging house and employment bureau. From there he transferred the center of his activities to Manhattan.
The growth of the Father Divine Peace Mission Movement in New York City has been one of the phenomenal occurrences in the history of the Negro in the North.4 In the metropolis alone there are more than a score of extensions, as the branches of the movement are called. Services are held at one time or other in all of these, but it is in the larger ones, where there are public auditoriums, that the most important occurrences take place.
There are similar branches in other cities and states throughout the Union, chiefly in the North and West, and even in other parts of the world.
ORGANIZATION
In the Father Divine Peace Mission Movement, Father Divine is the organization.
There are no assistants, no assistant leaders, no directors, vice-presidents, vice-chairmen, or elders. Whatever directive is carried out, no matter where it may be, has been issued or is assumed to have been issued by Father Divine.
The reason for such an organizational situation is not far to seek. Father Divine is God. He is everywhere, knows everything, sees and hears all things. Even though he dwells in New York City or Philadelphia a decision made by a follower in California could not have materialized independently, but must have been the result of spirit wireless directly from Father Divine.
In order to perform all the tasks devolving upon him in the metropolis, Father Divine is surrounded by secretaries, most of them women, white or Negro, who write down every word he utters and transmit his wishes to his followers near and far throughout the world.
The question naturally arises how any consistent work is accomplished if there is no organizational responsibility. The fact is there is tremendous organizational responsibility; it is so tremendous and so forceful that followers strain themselves in their efforts to keep attuned to the spirit of their leader, whether he is present or absent, in order that they may know whether or not they have heard his call.
How intimately the leader is involved in every activity of each member of the cult is symbolized by Father Divineās service at the banquet table, known as the Holy Communion. Every dish on which food is placed passes at least once through his hands. When a platter of meat is to be sent around, Father Divine places the serving utensil upon the platter with his own hands. He places the ladle in the tureen of soup; he cuts the first slice of cake, pours the first glass of water, introduces the serving spoon into each container of ice cream. He is thus part of every activity of the feast.
While theoretically there are no subordinates, actually there are certain figures who are recognized as important or outstanding in the general pattern. John Lamb, the very efficient and ubiquitous personal secretary of Father Divine, is one of thes...
