Oddlet: Father Divine · 1 min read
Aug 27, 2026
Peace
He fed three thousand people in an afternoon, banned the word "hello" because it contained "hell," and quietly let his followers know he was God.
By 1932, George Baker of Hutchinson Island, Georgia, was running an empire out of Harlem. The International Peace Mission served fricassee chicken, ham and eggs, pork trotters, and creamed cauliflower to anyone who walked in, several times a day, for a quarter or for nothing. Three thousand people came in a single summer afternoon. His followers had given up tobacco, alcohol, debt, life insurance, sex with their own spouses, and the word "hello," because it contained "hell." They greeted each other with "Peace."
He had also, quietly, informed everyone he was God.
When Sayville neighbors phoned the house on Macon Street to complain about the noise, the voice on the line said, "Do you know whom you are talking to? This is God himself." When Sayville police arrested him in 1931, God produced a thousand dollars in cash for bail. When his trial came in May 1932, the jury convicted and asked for leniency. Justice Lewis J. Smith, age fifty-five, called him a menace to society and handed down the maximum: a year in prison and five hundred dollars.
Four days later, Justice Smith was dead of a heart attack.
From his cell, Father Divine gave reporters four words.
"I hated to do it."
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- Wikipedia — Father Divine — Comprehensive biography. Provides birth name and probable birth dates/locations, Sayville address, arrest dates (May 8, 1931; Nov 15, 1931 raid with 78 arrested), trial date (May 24, 1932), Judge Smith's death (June 9, 1932), Divine's release (June 25, 1932), Rockland Palace audience of ~10,000, Time's 2-million membership claim vs scholarly tens-of-thousands, Verinda Brown lawsuit specifics, Peninniah's 1943 death, 1946 marriage details, Woodmont acquisition (1953), and death (Sept 10, 1965).
- Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia — International Peace Mission Movement and Father Divine — Scholarly essay focusing on the Philadelphia period. Provides July 1942 Philadelphia move, specific property addresses (Circle Mission Church 1939; Divine Lorraine 1948 with 246 rooms; Divine Tracy 1949; Woodmont 1952, 72 acres), banquet frequency ('several times a day'; 10 banquets in 3 days during 1939 Philadelphia visit), and the Divine Cooperative Plan financial policy.
- Britannica — Father Divine — Encyclopedic biography confirming Rockville, Maryland birthplace and parents probably former slaves, 1899 Baltimore gardener job, 1919 Sayville move, 1933 Harlem move, 'Heavens' concept, businesses generating millions, 1936 Righteous Government Platform's demands, 1942 Philadelphia move partly to avoid the member-suit judgment, 1946 chaste marriage to Edna Rose Ritchings declared a reincarnation of the first Mother Divine, and death September 10, 1965.
- BlackPast.org — Father Divine
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