For years and years Father Divine has spoken against racism in all forms and advocated what is summed up in a few paragraphs of one of HIS Sermons recently reprinted on page 1 of the June 1st 1963 issue of The New Day and given by Him in the year 1951.
The composition as you have heard it long since by inspiration declared:
Away down in Texas, And in the furthest parts of the South – They shall eat and drink together, – These Words came out of God’s mouth. – There will be no more race riots and lynchings, – There will be no more division and strife – When they recognize God’s body…. Racism shall be wiped out …..
Then, another little composition by inspiration coming forth from a declaration and prediction:
“We shall have the SAME RIGHTS, Not only EQUAL, but the SAME.”
You know you have heard quite a bit about having the Equal Rights, but I say, we shall have the Same Rights, for that system of so-called equal rights, it has been just as far from the Same Rights as the East is from the West. But,
“We shall have the SAME RIGHTS, Not only Equal but the SAME. – Side by side we shall ride In the SAME CAR, BUS and TRAIN.”
Abolishing Segregation
This, we declared many years ago and I presented MY BODY as a Living Sacrifice thirty- two times in the hands of lynch mobs to redeem mankind in this world from inhumanity, from vice and from crime. Then I declared:
“We Shall Have The Same Rights, Not Only Equal, But The Same.”
A good many people did not even know that that which is deemed or had been called Equal Rights was not the Same Rights. There was division, there was strife and inequality. As long as there is division or strife and inequality it is not the Same Rights. Even our Bill of Rights has been used selfishly and discriminatorily and not democratically and evangelically. For this cause I sing with you all:
“We shall have the same rights, not only equal, but the same, – Side by side we shall ride in the same car, bus and train.”
Everyone shall live eventually in peaceful and quiet resting places where no man will be able to make you ashamed, for I have brought an end to localization. Localities and vicinities have no barriers for ME. Aren’t you glad. (“So glad, FATHER Dear.” shouted the happy throng.) And they will have no barriers for you. If every American citizen will live Soberly, Righteously and Godly and be decent and orderly and respectable, I will give you the same rights all others have, to live in any vicinity and in any district and locality as others do, and give you the same rights to life, liberty and the reality of happiness the same as we have it here jurisdictionally. Not only so, but we will bring an end to that line of demarcation, a complete abolition to the line of demarcation, for as we said in that little composition.
“Blot out that Mason and Dixon line, It only breeds vice and crime.”
Therefore, we shall continue to eradicate and eradicate and erase and erase and dispel until it has no longer an existence only in the minds of men.
So then I say, live this Life of Democracy, Americanism, Christianity, Judaism as synonymous and Unite, Unite, Unite and let there be no division among you and we shall have the SAME RIGHTS and the SAME PRIVILEGES as all other citizens universally. Even I will bring an end to that which is commonly called the previous condition of servitude that has robbed thousands and millions out of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I will give them their right of their franchise and will give them access for expression and bring an abolition, yea, an obliteration of that which is commonly known as the previous condition of servitude. It shall have no longer an existence among this people. The mouth of GOD has declared it. “We shall have the same rights.” (As FATHER took HIS Seat the audience sang the foregoing composition in its entirety as follows:)
“We shall have the same rights, not only equal, but the same. – Side by side we shall ride in the same car, bus and train. – We shall play in the same parks, study our lessons in the same school, – There shall be the same equal rights for you, and you, and you.”
“Forevermore, we shall have the same rights, we all shall dine face to face, – Eternally there shall never be known a creed, color or race – We shall live together and worship god in the same pew, – There shall be the same equal rights for you, and you, and you.”
Father Divine
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