Secretary: FATHER DIVINE, This is Mrs. C. Q.
FATHER: Peace, Mrs. Q.
Lady: Peace FATHER DIVINE.
FATHER: You might take a seat a few seconds.
Lady: I was advised to come here from the Lorraine Hotel. I have been eating there for about three months, and this is my husband here— a picture of him and I am legally married to him by Magistrate Rainey. I suppose You have heard of him.
FATHER: Yes, I have heard of him.
Lady: And he and I are separated. Someone told my landlady I was married to this man of darker complexion and all my friends are of a darker race; and I have been living with lighter people and I went to get my trailer down in Florida and when I came back, why, they told me I had to move. And I told my landlady, "It should not interfere with you who I am married to; I am not with him!" I said, "He is not here!"
I told them about it at the Lorraine and they told me I should come and see YOU.
FATHER: I see.
Lady: But I mean, I feel pretty bad about it. After I told her about it , at the hotel, she said I should come and see YOU. I asked them did they have any rooms at the hotel and they said "Yes," but they didn't have any private rooms and you share the rooms, but they still wanted me to come down and explain it to YOU.
FATHER: I see.
Lady: And FATHER, after all,what I don't understand about it is, it is the six hundred block of North Twelfth Street and the darker complexion live across the street, yet they did not like it. They talked about me because I ate up at the Lorraine Hotel; and I have become very friendly with them and when I meet them, most naturally I speak. So now I am not wanted at the house. This is my husband, MOTHER, and this is the house I live in.
MOTHER: Oh, I see.
Lady: And I mean, while I was gone, practically everybody in the neighborhood knew I was going to make this trip to Florida. I was only gone five days. I drove right down and right back. That is when they started all this talk. I got back Sunday night about ten thirty, and Sunday morning, that is the way she greeted me, saying the neighbors were criticizing me and talking about me.
FATHER: Well, that is common. Lots of people marry interracially and internationally. Of course, only those who are prejudiced and divided hate to see Democracy put into action, and of course, it may be that some of your former associates, they may not desire you to associate with all people, therefore, they may have had something to say. But the majority of the people are to highly intelligent now days in this advanced civilization in which we are presently living, to make a big to-do over the integration of dining rooms, hotels or anything else— or association.
Lady: Well, I feel like that too. Most of my friends are of the darker race; and I often felt , supposing while I was living in this particular house, I should get sick or something and none of my friends could come and see me. I thought maybe it wood be good to live just where I could have someone to come and see me and I would not be criticized by the lighter race of people. FATHER, I mean, what is the use to continue to live with the lighter race of people if that would foul me up and it would just keep me moving?
FATHER: Well, if you will allow it to be, if you are living with someone who is prejudiced to that extent and you know it, why, naturally, you are separating yourself from others by allowing the prejudices of those with whom you may live or associate, to separate you from them; but in MY opinion, if you are at a place, no doubt, and you find out they are prejudiced, the same as if you would be at the Lorraine or any other place, and you find out they are prejudiced in any direction, as far as complexion is concerned, you would not be obliged to remain with them; and at times such as that is aroused and brought up for the purpose of causing people to do what they would or should do!
Lady: Well I tried to reason every way I could with her, and she said that I had always given her home the best of respects, but it was just the neighbors, and I said "What are the neighbors? They aren't going to put anything in your pockets!"
FATHER: Well, that is true.
Lady: But that is the way she felt about it. She said she would give me the highest recommendation.
FATHER: Maybe they thought you were of African decent or something like that. Maybe they felt like that. Maybe they had that thought.
Lady: Well, here's the way I felt. I said, I have been eating at the Lorraine Hotel for the past three months— after April, and I thought, well, if this is possible, maybe I better cut down all this publicity with people looking at you and staring at you. Where I am living it is a poorer class of people anyway. You take educated people, people that have been somewhere, they don't pay any attention to it.
FATHER: It is only those kind of people mostly that will make such a big to-do, and someone who has nothing to offer! So, it would be your privilege, if you can get accommodations, to live in any of our connections. It would be your privilege so long as you comply with our rules and regulations.
Lady: Well, there is one thing I do have, and I hope YOU will help me with that. There is only one thing, FATHER. I do smoke but not to excess.
FATHER: Well, that seems to be a simple, seemingly sinless habit, but yet, our Modest Code does call for abstinence from all smoking, from all drinking intoxicating liquors.
Lady: That habit I don't have! I am glad of that!
FATHER: And this may be the means of you saving yourself from the simple habit of smoking if you are willing to comply with the rules and regulations and rise above racism, that thought that would try to keep you down or try to ridicule you because of such. We have the integration of all nations and all peoples in all of our places. They are open to and for that purpose— to have everybody, whomsoever they may be, regardless to their racial or national origin, so long as they are people and live according to the Fundamentals for which we stand; all are welcome. And this really means, no doubt, I might say, a way through which you might free yourself from them— those people that would be prejudiced to that extent, to try to condemn or accuse because of your conviction in Democracy and in living the way you should live.
The Lorraine is not the only place, as you might know, there are other places that are open to the public if they will comply with our MODEST CODE. A number of apartment houses and small hotels, and everybody is welcome as long as they will comply with our system of procedure of living under this Jurisdiction. So this may be a means, as afore said, through which you may be able to free yourself from the thought of being segregated. You say you and your husband are separated?
Lady: Yes, FATHER. We have been separated since last October. He started drinking and of course I am not a drinking lady, and he started staying out nights and you know what that leads to. And of course I have not forgiven him and I am not interested in another man. Of course, he did wrong, and I feel it would hurt my pride to humble to him because he was in the fault; but I mean I am still suffering by it for not doing it. It is just one of those things.
FATHER: Well, you might suffer by doing it, because you might consider you can go some places without him and get accommodations like the place you were living at recently, where you couldn't get accommodations with him.
Lady: I feel more at home with the darker race. I mean, the truth is the truth, like I did say, I have lots of friends among the darker race and when I can't speak to them on the street, you might as well give up and jump in the Delaware River.
FATHER: Where are you from Miss Q?
Lady: Well I was raised in Binghamton, New York; that is up near Scranton.
FATHER: I see.
MOTHER DIVINE: I feel, the reason she feels so at home among the darker complexion is because GOD meant for us to unify, and that is why you feel at home.
FATHER: Sure! More people are inspired to feel more interracial and international because of the advancement of our civilization than what it used to be. There was a girl last week from the South that wrote about prejudice. She was about sixteen or seventeen and she said she couldn't see why people couldn't mix together!— "Why is it they have to be separated?
Lady: Well, that is what I told my landlady. I said, "There are only two places to go and that is to heaven and h— ," according to the Bible, and I said there isn't going to be any prejudice up there! And it isn't going to be any prejudice down there! So, why should it be here? Then she put it on the neighbors, She said it wasn't her so much it was the neighbors. So I said every tub must stand on its own bottom! Everybody has to live their own life! It is just one of those things. And, as I said, if I should get sick and no one to help me and my friends couldn't come around and help me, it is just like being in prison, in a way of speaking. And so, like this morning I explained it to them and they advised me to come and see YOU. And they said, that is pretty bad and I should come down and speak to YOU. And they said there was a vacancy, but I couldn't have a private room.
FATHER: Well, of course there is no mixing of the sexes.
Lady: Oh, I understand that.
FATHER: You might have a sister as a bedmate the same as MOTHER'S there. That is MOTHER'S bedmate. (FATHER refers to Miss Peaceful Love of a darker complexion, MOTHER'S bedmate.)
Lady: That would be alright with me. I tell YOU, I feel more at home.
FATHER: Well, that is the only way. I came to break that line of demarcation and bring an abolition to division among the people. We even make our Pledge of Allegiance to our Flag which says, "One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all!" But they do not live it, neither express it. No doubt, that would be the only thought, if you did have any preconceived hereditive prejudices within you and if they were inactive, lying dormant and you had to be with someone with the complexion of MOTHER'S bedmate or this one here or something of that sort, it might present itself, but it would be for the purpose of overcoming the preconceived prejudices for I did say Scripturally, predictionally,
"He shall purify the Sons of Levi and purge them as Silver and as Gold are purged."
It may have been some of those preconceived tendencies in some of MY Following of both complexions and of the different national origins or descendants, but yet, as they live together in MY Spirit and Mind and according to MY Teaching, I am purging them of all of those preconceived ideas and opinions, human fancies, pleasures and their tendencies and and their respective prejudices and hate an bigotry preconceived within them. I AM purifying unto MYSELF a Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle!
But I will not be discouraged until I shall have purged humanity of all those things and I will do it as we live together and fast out those preconceived tendencies, those preconceived fancies and pleasures and preconceived prejudices and preconceived bigotry— all those things that may have been preconceived through hereditation, something of that sort. And as they fast from those things, they are being purified, for I AM purifying unto MYSELF a Glorious Church without a spot or wrinkle!
So that, no doubt, might be the only thought. No one knows directly or exactly from whence they came! They may think they came from some special place. Some may think they came from some family, some lineage, some nationality and yet they may have come from different nationalities, they knew not what or whom. I recall, I saw an article in the paper. It has been about thirty years ; a man in Atlanta Georgia, he was a grocery man— ran a grocery business and he was quite well to do.
Lady: He was what?
FATHER: I said, he was quite well to do and he had two daughters. At least he had several boys and two daughters. I think they said it was about seven or eight in the family. He thought he was the father of all of that family and it came out that he was not the father of one of them! His wife had never been a mother and he thought he was the father of all of those children! I AM saying that to say this; many times people may not know from whence they came.
Lady: That's right.
FATHER: You may know what your so-called mother or your so-called father said in your infancy or from your childhood up, but you may not know in reality where you where when you were born or from what lineage you came.! So, it is a Wonderful thought.
Some may have some preconceived prejudices or preconceived fancies or tendencies within them. Something like someone said about Mrs. Roosevelt once. I think some of the Dixiecrats or prejudiced people said they believed Mrs. Roosevelt had some so-and-so blood in her because she was friendly with the so-and-so's to a certain extent.
Lady: I remember that.
FATHER: Well, maybe she was. Even if the parents thought they knew from start to finish, she might have some racial blood , as it may be termed, and none would know saving HIM to Whom it was given to know all things! Nevertheless, there are also preconceived prejudices in people as well as preconceived fancies and pleasures and tendencies; all of these must be overcome, for
"He shall purify the Sons of Levi and purge them . . ."
Therefore, I AM actually judging the people with equity that they might offer unto the GOD an offering in Righteousness as in former days; in other words, as in former years and as in the days of old!
Lady: Well, FATHER, we all came from Adam and Eve and we are all supposed to be sisters and brothers according to that,aren't we?
FATHER: Certainly.
Lady: But the people don't understand that. Now I was down in Miami about four months and I got lost, and there was a darker gentleman standing there, and forgetting where I was, I said, "Buddy, can you tell me where I am?" He was off down the street, and I said what's the matter with these people? So when I came back and my landlady approached me like she did, I said, I must be still across the Mason and Dixon Line.
Well, FATHER, I'm going to the Lorraine and ask them for a space and I know YOU will stop me from smoking because I know I can't smoke in there. One package of cigarettes usually lasts me a day and a half.
FATHER: Don't let them catch you smoking there!
Lady: Well, before I do that I will go down to the subway, but of course I would hate for anybody to catch me down there, because that is cheating.
FATHER: well, that's true. That's true. It is good to be honest and let your conscience be clear. As you see MY immediate staff, I did not introduce you to MOTHER, but I consider you knew to whom you were speaking. You have seen her picture.
Lady: Yes, I have.
FATHER: And these are some of MY immediate Staff.
Lady: It must be like one big happy family!
FATHER: WEll, that is just the way we are going to have it— all over the world and those of the bigoted and prejudiced people who are not willing to do right and live right by all people, eventually they will be cut off the stage of action, for the meek shall inherit the earth and the righteous shall dwell in the land forever!
For this cause we are integrating and amalgamating all peoples together, but in Virtue and Holiness! And as I have it here, it is not being done for the purpose of self indulgence or sex indulgence or any mortal tendency, but for the establishment of Righteousness among the people for which CHRIST died!
When this is done universally, there will be no more warfare and bloodshed! There will be no more divisibility, but we will be indivisible universally! I thank you.
Lady: Thank YOU, FATHER. It has been a pleasure.
FATHER: Well I will be glad to know you are down there and you shall have found yourself comfortable and happy, as you have been going there and you desire to be there, it is of your own free will; and as you desire to dine in any of our places of your own free will, you are welcome to come and do so as long as you comply with the rules and regulations, because I AM going to have it all over just as I have it here! People can't understand how I can have it here and on MY immediate Staff— having everything that life demands and yet not being obligated and not having any outside responsibility and cares! It is marvelous!
Lady: Well, thank YOU, FATHER and thanks everyone.
FATHER: You are welcome. Peace.
Lady: (As she is going out the door she turns to FATHER and says:) I feel much better now.
FATHER: So glad!
Lady; Peace, FATHER.
FATHER: Peace.
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