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| Roy Davis wrote "I am the minister who received Brother Branham into the first Pentecostal assembly he ever frequented. I baptized him, and was his pastor for some two years." Roy Davis was also a leader in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a far-right white supremacist organization. | | {{Early Days}} |
| | Roy Davis wrote "'''''I am the minister who received Brother Branham into the first Pentecostal assembly he ever frequented. I baptized him, and was his pastor for some two years.'''''" Roy Davis was also a leader in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a far-right white supremacist organization. |
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| ==Roy Davis' Pentecostal Baptist Church== | | ==Roy Davis' Pentecostal Baptist Church== |
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| :::::R. E. Davis, Sr. | | :::::R. E. Davis, Sr. |
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| ==Roy Davis and the KKK== | | =Quotes= |
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| In 1965 the U.S. House of Representatives held Hearings on the Activities of the K.K.K. organizations in the United States. These Hearings revealed that in 1960, the Reverend Roy Davis of Texas tried to organize the old Original Knights of the KKK, at which time he held the authority to appoint the Imperial Dragon of this organization, and designate who would receive the royalties from the sale of robes (http://archive.org/stream/activitiesofkukl03unit/activitiesofkukl03unit_djvu.txt). US Army records also show that on August 18, 1963 Roy Davis participated in a meeting of the Indignant White Citizens Council (Book: “Kennedy Assassination: Surveillance of Civil Rights Activists”, Barry Leonard, Editor).
| | ==Quotes regarding William Branham receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit== |
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| Roy Davis moved to Jeffersonville from Texas in the 1920’s and started a church. The Encyclopedia of Religious Debates (2012) and the Gospel Guardian Newsletter (1947) both refer to Roy Davis as having a Pentecostal Holiness church in Louisville, Kentucky in 1929. This would have been a white-Pentecostal church. In 1929 he participated in a debate with Jefferson Tant of the Church of Christ (http://www.ptc.dcs.edu/teacherpages/tthrasher/listings/Ta.htm). It is recorded that Mr. Tant said the following to Mr. Davis: "If somebody should put your brains into a mustard seed they'd have as much room to play around in as a tadpole would in the Atlantic ocean." (http://www.wordsfitlyspoken.org/gospel_guardian/v1/v1n7p8.html). After the church in Jeffersonville burned down, Roy Davis returned to Texas.
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| In the early 1900’s, Jeffersonville was a town with little law. It was known for a time as “little Las Vegas” for its gambling and related entertainment (which the Branham family participated in with their sales of alcohol). While New Albany and Louisville had strong anti-KKK laws, Jeffersonville did not, which is likely why the Reverend Roy Davis settled there. Roy Davis later moved back to Texas where he became known for his involvement with the KKK.
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| In Jeffersonville in the 1930's, the issue of race was likely just as important socially as the issue of doctrine. When William Branham went to Mishawaka, Ohio in the mid 1930's, he came back inspired with a new Pentecostal message that he heard from an elderly African American preacher. This was startling not because it was a Pentecostal message (William Branham was already a Pentecostal minister) but the fact that the Pentecostal experience he witnessed crossed racial barriers and included Oneness theology. However, he stated that he listened to his mother-in-law and chose not to associate with the Mishawaka Pentecostals. The question must be asked whether his mother-in-law's concern related to fact that the Mishawaka Pentecostals were African American. It couldn't have been related to their being Pentecostals as William Branham was already a Pentecostal in 1933, well before his attending the Mishawaka meetings.
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| When William Branham’s ministry started reaching an international audience in the late 1940s, he was no longer concerned with mixing with either Parham or Seymour Pentecostals, or Oneness or Trinitarian Pentecostals. However, the issue of race was also important in the late 1940's when his sermons began to be recorded. At this time, there is no indication of racial tensions in William Branham's recorded sermons other than comments against Martin Luther King Jr. and a prophecy that he would lead millions to their death.
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| ===Where did the division of White and Black Pentecostals come from?===
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| Before the Pentecostal movement became divided over the Godhead, it was divided over racial lines. This began shortly after Charles Parham visited William Seymour’s church on Azusa Street in 1906.
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| Seymour was African American, and had attended Parham’s school in Texas (in the hallway due to the Jim Crow laws). Parham was locked out of Seymour’s Azusa street church due to his harsh preaching and criticism, so he started alternative services down the street. After Parham left Los Angeles, he spent much of his time between Zion (Illinois), Baxter Springs (Kansas) and Houston (Texas). Parham also spoke positively about the Ku Klux Klan.
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| So where did William Branham’s Pentecostal roots come from? From Charles Parham, who was a believer in British Israel, via a minister named Roy E. Davis. Now you know where William Branham learned the Serpent Seed doctrine from.
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| ==Quotes==
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| ===Quotes regarding William Branham receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit===
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| THE.RESURRECTION.OF.LAZARUS_ CLEVELAND.OH SUNDAY_ 50-0813A | | THE.RESURRECTION.OF.LAZARUS_ CLEVELAND.OH SUNDAY_ 50-0813A |