Extra! Extra! Extra! Peace Everybody! Father Divine Is God! Peace to All the World! [caption title]

[Los Angeles]: California Eagle, 1934. Good.. Broadside, 14.5 x 9 inches. Moderate toning, old folds, very minor loss at two crossfolds, a few short splits along fold lines, some small marginal chipping. A highly ephemeral broadside touting the message of Father Divine and denouncing a recent fraud by "a Set of People from Hollywood" who attempted to use Father Divine's name to purchase the Hotel Dunbar. Father Major Jealous Divine (1882-1965) known earlier in his life as George Baker, was the most prominent Black religious cult leader of the 1930s, believed to be a divine messenger, the messiah, or God himself by tens of thousands of African Americans and middle-class whites during the Great Depression. In November 1931, Divine and seventy-eight of his followers were arrested for disturbing the peace at the Reverend's property in Sayville, New York, on the south shore of Long Island. Father Divine was tried and found guilty in June 1932. The judge -- who, interestingly, died of a heart attack just days later, speaking to Divine's followers of heavenly retribution -- called him a fraud and a "menace to society," handing down the maximum sentence of a year in prison. He actually spent only a few weeks in jail before his lawyers secured his release on appeal. When freed, Father Divine moved to Harlem where his "Peace Mission" of social and economic betterment acquired international acclaim.

One unintended consequence of Father Divine's success is encapsulated in the present broadside. The first portion of the work quotes from an address by Father Divine delivered in New York on May 17, 1934. In this message, Father Divine discusses housing as an extension of evangelical work, the world of commercialism as a good provided it is "magnified and made honorable," and then lambasts "the racketeers, the speculators and grafters, and the money-changers, for they made merchandise of the Spirit of God's Presence." These various aspects dovetail into the issue at hand. Apparently a group of nefarious individuals in Los Angeles were attempting to "close a deal on the Hotel Dunbar" in the name of Father Divine. Not so, says the broadside, for this "set of people in 51st Street, Los Angeles, Calif., Santa Cruz included, are endeavoring to use Father Divine's name to make believe." The broadside was printed on the press of the California Eagle, an African-American newspaper published in Los Angeles between its founding in 1879 and its last issue in 1964.

This is the only Father Divine item we've encountered that was published in California, and as far we know, the only copy of this ephemeral broadside in existence.