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"PEACE IN THE KINGDOM"
(Religious Cult of Father Divine)
by Frank Byrd
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A.
Circumstanzes of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORFER Frank Byrd
ADDRESS 224 W. 135th S. NYC
DATE September 5, 1938
SUBJECT RPTIGIOUS CULT OF "FATHER DIVINE"
1. Date and time of interview August, 1937
2. Place of interview Sayville, Long Island
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
3. Name and address of informant Chief Tucker, Police Headquarters
(Chief of Police, Sayville, L. I.)
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
toucn with informant.
New York Daily News
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
Reporters from other N. Y. Newspapers
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Usual precinct room
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of interview
STATE NEW YORK
NM OF wOJCER Frank Byrd
XmluSs 224 W. 135th St. New York City
DATE September 12, 1938
SUBJECT POLICE CHIEF TUCKER'S STORY "PEACE IN gliE KINGDOM"
FOLKLORE.
NEW YORK
PEACE IN THE KINGDOM
AS TOLD TO THE WRITER BY TIE CHIEF OF POLICE; SAYVILLE, L.I.
Major T. (Father) Divine has become almost a legendary
figure in lower Long Island where he first set up his cult head-
quarters. Many stories about his peculiar religious doings and
subsequent tiffs with the law are told by native inhabitants.
The following is only one of many. The writer has taken the liberty
of changing names of persons and places.
The changes as they appear in the story:
Major T. (Father Divine) to Rev. Andrew Elijah Jones.
Police Chief Tucker to Chief Becker.
Macon Street to Pudding Hill Road
Sayville to Hopeville
Mineola to Salt Point
Judge S#ith to Judge Walker
When they first came to town nobody paid much attention
to them. They were just another group of Niggers who had moved in.
They were a little different from the others though. Instead of
gallivanting all over the country -side at nights, drinking home made
hootch and doing the Belly -Roll until almost dawn, they worked hard
in the white folks' kitchens all day and, as soon as night came,
hurriedly finished up with their pots and pans and made a bee -line
for Andrew Elijah Jones' little meeting house in the back of
Joe Kersak's grocery store.
Andrew Jones, a squat, wooly headed, middle aged, little
black man with a sly, rougish gleam in his eye, was their leader.
In the daytime he ran the Hopeville employment agency for "colored
domestics" but, at night, he was a man of God. In fact, many of his
followers insisted that he was "God his self --in person"; and nobody
could dispute them. Their bodies belonged to the white folks during
the day but their souls, both day aid night, were the exclusive
property of their foxy, pint-sized patriach. They even slept with
him in a big, rambling old house planted among a grove of elm trees
at the end of Plum Hill Road. They called themselves his disciples;
his children. And they called him "Father --Father Andrew -Elijah".
Well, the townspeople didn't mind this so much but that
business of nightly worship in the back of .Lersak's store began to
get them down. When the sisters and brothers began to fell the
spirit in earnest, they whooped and hollered something awful. And
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their shouts, in a quiet, suburban place like Hopeville where
everyone went to bed early could be heard for miles around.
The townsfolk rose up in arms and got together to see
what could be done about it. They finally decided that Jones, that
is Father Andrew -Elijah had to go. A representative committee
waited on him at his place of business bright and early one morning
and did what they could to persuade the good reverend to move on
to greener pastures.
"Nothing doing!" or words to that effect, answered the
the right reverend.
He was doing all right in Hopeville and the idea of giving
it up was the last thing that ever occured to him. His disciples
were all employed as cooks, maids, gardeners and chauffers in the
homes of the countryside's wealthiest people and they brought all
their earnings home to him. Why should he move? The very idea
was preposterous.
The natives retreated for another war -council and Father
Andrew's disciples continued happily, almost ecstatically, about
their work. Whether they were in the midst of shopping for their
employers, or baking a deep-dish apple pie, the unexpectedly used
to burst forth with little exclamations of delight like "Peace'
"It's truly wonderful!" Thank you Father!" and so on. Even when
they stumbled and fell or accidentally upset a glass of water in
their masterst-or mistresses' laps, they said: "Thank you, Father,
I'm sorry."
Well even then, the employers couldn't find it in themselves
to be mad.
"They're just just great, big children." they'd say, and
smile indulgently.
The fact is, the religious satellites, who called them-
selves by such funny names as "Happy Boy Job", "Patience Delight",
"Eternal Faith" Faith" etc. were hones as the day is long and were
excellent servants in every other respect. In addition to that, they
could be hired for half the price of the lazy, sullen, shiftless r
Niggers who were natives of the town.
And so, Father Andrew -Elijah remained. And when the white
house -wives greeted their cooks and maids with an amused, patronizing:
"Good morning, Charity Light, How are you today?"
Charity Light would answer in all earnestness:
"Peacel Ain't it wonderful? Father Andrew-Elijah's God!
Youtall want bacon tnt eggs fo breakfast, dis motning".
Even on Main Street it was not unusual to hear one of
Father Andrew's angels, in a none too melodious voice and with the
gleam of the fanatic in his eye, singing: Father Andrew-Elijah's
The Light of The World."
The "Jonesities", as they were called, soon saved enough
to buy the two houses adjoining their property on Plum Hill Road.
One of the houses was converted into a sort of temple where the
nightly meetings were held and Sunday dinners served. Free dinners,
they were, and sumptious. Feasts to rival those of Biblical times.
Not only the "angels" particiapated. Everyone was invited.
Not many outsiders came at first. They were a still a
little wary. A few of the bolder townspeople ventured in, however,
and came away with wild stories of the huge banquet tables and savery
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Cooked meals. More and more people appeared as the Sundays passed.
Some came all the way from the city or the end of the island. And
they were not disappointed. The banquets were as colorful and
extravagant as they had been pictured. But most amezine as all was
the fact that, of all the hundreds of people who ate their fill,
nobody paid. Everything was free. The treat was on Father Andrew
Elijah.
"God provides everything for his people" some of the
angels were heard to say, as the free chicken, pork chops, roast
brown duck and suckling pig, smothered spare -ribs and an assortment
of vegetables, fruits and nuts were passed around in abundance.
Judging from the size of some of their eyes, the visitors
still did not, believe it was true, even after they had sat down
at the tables. With hundreds of darkies storming the quiet,
bourgeous community in dusty, broken down cars every Sunday afternoon,
running over the carefully tended lawns and trampling the municipal
shrubbery, the ire of the townspeople was once more aroused. They
trouped down in a body to demand that the police do something about
it.
"Chief Becker", the spokesman for the group began, "You've
got to do something about these niggers. They're not only a
nuisance but they're running property values down to nothing, they've
got most of us crazy, whooping and hollering until all hours of
the night and putting on their war -dances on the lawn."
Well, election was coming up. Chief Becker got busy.
"No -Parking" signs began to appear everywhere in the vicinity of
the Kingdom, although no one could remember having ever seen one
in the history of the town. Many of the poor whites solved this
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problem for the Kingdom by letting visitors park their cars at
twenty five cents each. Chief Becker, not to be outdone, began stopp-
ing all cars, looking at registration certificates, and being generally
annoying to all niggers seen driving a car in the neighborhood. This
did not stop the crowds. In fact, they got bigger. Chief Becker
cussed a blue streak. He pulled his hair out. But not matter
what he did or how much he raved and ranted, the influx could not
be stopped. The chief was licked -and he knew it.
"Boys," he said to the citizens' committee," "Iv'e
tried everything I could think of but the niggers keep comini,
I'm sorry, There's nothing else I can do."
The town -fathers more alarmed than ever, got together
and petitioned "God's" arrest on the grounds of not only maintain-
ing but being a public nuisance. The fact that the populace was
becoming more and more jittery through lack of sleep caused by the
"Kingdom's" nightly goings-on was specifically sighted in the
petition and Father Andrew -Elijah hustled unceremoniously into
court. The atmosphere there was so hotile, however, that the
defense moved for a change of venue and the proceedings were
resumed in the little neighboring town of Salt Point.
Judge Walker, who presided at the hearing and who didn't
like niggers anyhow, literally jumped on the good reverend with both
feet. He not only sentenced him to a year in jail but fined him
five hundred dollars to boot.
Four days later, much to the surprise of everyone,
Judge Walker dropped dead.
The doctors said: "Heart trouble."
Father Andrew -Elijah, grinning with a sly, knowing look
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and acting for all the world like the cat that swallowed the
canary, proclaimed:
"The cosmic forces of nature work with me."
The townspeople back in Hopeville shook their heads and
began to wonder if there wasn't something to the story of old
Jonesy's black -magic after all.
The "angels" went hop -skipping through the streets
shouting: "We told you sol Father Andrew-Elijah's Godl Peacel
Ain't it wonderful?"
Old Andrew's slick city lawyers appealed the case and
the Appellate Division immediately reversed the late Judge Walker's
fateful decision. Then the "angel" really got beside themselves.
That night they hung lanterns in the trees, danced wildly around a
greasing banquet table, flung their arms skyward, babbled in unknown
tongues and sang, more lustily than ever; "Father Andrew-Elijah's
The Light Of The Worldi"
Once again there was peace in the Kingdom.
FOR D
Eytra Con went
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Frank Byrd
wilEss 224 W. 135th St. NYC
DATE September 5th, 1938
SUBJECT RELIGIOUS CULT OF "FATHER DIVINE"
FOLKLORE
NEW YOP,K
The interview is, as near as I remember, a fairly accurate
report of Chief Tucker's description of the advent and stay of
Father Divine's religious followers in Sayville, L. I. The in-
terview was given while Father Divine was on trial at Mineola,
L. I. for "being and maintaining a public nuisance."
Chief Tucker's whimsical and humorous description, I
feel, represented the seneral attitude of the townspeople who
seemed to feel that the cult and all its followers were somewhat
ridiculous. There were others who apparently felt just the opposite.
A report of other narratives will subsequently follow.