The Religious Grifter's Pyramid Scheme

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher and friend, John McKinnon, the author of the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet, and the noble politician.

And together we're discussing weaponized religion, how Christian identity fused with early Christian fundamentalism and politics to form the foundation for the new apostolic reformation. John, today we have such a wild ride. This is one of the most crazy, most interesting stories that have come across, and ironically it's really is the foundation for where we're headed.

But as we talk about it, it's going to seem so distant and disconnected. But we're focusing on William Branham's mentor, William Branham being the leader of the post-World War II healing revival, his mentor being Roy E. Davis, who planted Branham's church in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

And it's such an interesting story because while Davis is all over the place in history, you know, you read through the newspaper articles and you find him and nearly, you know, states from California all the way to Georgia and everywhere in between.

And it looks like he's somewhat disconnected, but you can find him working with the Baptist in the South, the Church of God people, the Pentecostals, we have actually where he held debates defending the assemblies of God.

And I mean, this guy's all over the place. He was on the front page of the Voice of Healing magazine advertising his laterane revivals. So he's so connected to everything, but he's also connected to politics.

And he is a not the reason, but he's one of the key figures who is bringing the weaponized religion framework with politics fusing with religion in the early 1900s, all the way through the laterane movement.

This man was critical in doing this, working with other key figures, which we can recognize doing this in other places. in other areas. And so we have to give a background on him, which we have done in the past, but much of that research was, as we were giving the early history of Roy Davis, much of that research was in its early phases. We did not know that he admitted in the, I think it was the 1950s, that he was one of the men who wrote the bylaws for the 1915 Ku Klux Klan, and we discovered

even later that he was the second in command of that clan working directly under William Joseph Simmons. So our, our early picture of Roy Davis, it's painted entirely different whenever you understand what all he was involved with. John, I would agree this, this episode and others that follow it'll be, it'll be a wild ride and it'll be a, it'll be a good ride as we delve into this history. And for those that have never studied this history, this is, it's pretty fascinating because it really relates to the fabric of America and what was going on during that time and how

things evolved and how offshoots of this went into various, you know, offshoots of religion and how it even is in that, like you mentioned, the new apostolic reformation, there's fibers, fibers of it still there. But I think Roy Davis is such a unique character. He's worth spending some time on he really intrigued me as you follow his trail and you really have to dig deep and to really follow his trail because he was known for using aliases, disguising himself and trying not to make himself known.

But as we'll see, it's so fortunate that things would happen that would expose him, whether it be the woman in Georgia that recognized him from a meeting in Texas that he tried to deny. He was that person and that that just brought his world down at the time. But he always managed to have way to bounce back. I mean, he was very resilient. He didn't let one incident get him down. I think he had a determination in him and he might have been one of the first successful ministers or so-called ministers that used the ministry to promote his agenda. You know, his ministry was

or his agenda was not so much ministry as it was the white supremacy as it was to clan agenda as it was politics. And so it made a blending of politics and religion and he never stopped doing that and he used his mentees along the way, such as Bram. He brought him under his wing and taught him the reigns of what he was doing. And although Bram didn't embrace the political agenda so much, but he used his ministry to promote those ideas further as he- Apple through his ministry.

So it'll be a very interesting ride and we got quite a few other characters to introduce, you know, that even the man that started the clan itself back in 1915, the second wave, and Roy did it mid.

I believe it was 1961, but he admitted to having a partner's bylaws and that'll be interesting to talk about how and the timeframe of when he would have probably done that. So yeah, I'm looking forward to this, John.

It's gonna be really fun. Yeah, this is a crazy history. And, you know, to fully understand the history, we have to broaden what we talk about a bit because while the character himself is incredibly interesting, you have to understand the time period in which he was living.

And he was nothing more than a grifter in his early days, but he was a grifter with an agenda, which makes it really funny. And you have to understand that it was during this time, C.A.L. Totten, his works on British Israelism were widespread and they were starting to morph at this point of time into what became, later became Christian identity.

It was bringing in the racial elements. It was very, getting on the borderline of anti-Semitic, it really became that later, but C.A.L. Totten laid the framework for all of that, which would be picked up and turned into, you know, this goes all the way to the Christian nationalists, the Aryan nations, skinheads.

I mean, this is a very, very dark history when you start taking the path forward, but during this point of time in which Davis is building his, his criminal and religious career, both at the same time, you had, he was in the South, he was from Texas, and this was during a period of time in American history when the nation itself was transitioning.

The nation, you know, they were, in the southern states, they were forced to release their, the slaves and they were forced to allow the slaves, people with black skin to now enter into the workplace, and they were seeing, you know, people who they literally owned, now working beside them, which was awkward for people in the South.

And at the same time, you had this massive influx of Jews, and the Jews, the Jewish people were coming into the United States, and they were taking a lot of the white collar jobs, and this became a significant problem in some of the bigger states, because while people who had a, you know, a heritage in that state, and they had this family lineage, were sometimes struggling to find work, you had people from out of the country, Jewish people coming in, and they were taking up the really good jobs.

in some cases, in some cities, and this is not a pinion, you can go read some of this history even on the internet, you can read some of that history. But what happened was it painted this picture that the people with black skin were rising up while the people with white skin were being

suppressed or oppressed, and they feared that it was going to flip, that the nation would become a nation of people with dark skin in the southern states. And so C.A.L. Totten's anti-Semitic themes and his racist themes that was emerging in the British Israel movement was quite popular among some of the people in the South that were witnessing all of this happening.

And Davis was right in the heart of where this was in the worst, as we mentioned in the last episode, being from Paris, Texas. He is coming from a very extremely violent and racist community, and this really had an impact on him in the early years. And to some extent, trying to put myself in his shoes, which is nearly impossible, I can see that while he was doing some things that were illegal, unethical, criminal, and just, you know, he's all over not a really good guy.

Some of the things he's doing, I think he justified in his mind because of his political and religious positions. And so he felt like he could do this, and it was for better cause.

Yeah, John, I think in his mind, and in Davis's mind, he was doing what was right for America. He had these views, and he was very racist, but in his mind, he was trying to make America what it once was back when his family, maybe his own slaves or whatever, and he could see the white race in general may have been competed with other races and with the immigration issue. I guess the immigration of the Jewish people or in others, Italian descent or whoever coming in to New York and flooding New York and taking up a lot of factory jobs, as well as now the civil war has been over for many years.

And also seeing those things happen, and also for the Catholic religion, being afraid of that because of the scares of, you know, they're under a different national government if you're a Catholic, so you're not loyal to America. So the whole thing was we want America to be white, we want loyal people to America because it's not too far after the revolution, you know, when America broke from Britain and, you know, colonists were pretty fierce in their determination to be independent. And And that heritage, that history had made its way all the way through the Civil War because that's what they

thought over there wanting to be independent and have their slavery and the South had that in their fabric of their being. So to be an American meant, you were going to resist all forms of tyranny.

And they saw the Catholic religion as tyranny. They saw the Jewish influx being taken over the banking institutions, and then they saw the black race now, once being our servants, now they can become our masters.

So to keep all that suppressed and to keep the white race and power, you know, he, he definitely, it was ripe for that type of organization. And the first clan that started back in the 1860s, in Tennessee, had made its way into Texas and had made its way throughout Georgia.

So by the time, you know, when William Simmons began to think about the start of a new clan, because the first clan basically fizzled out at about the mid 1870s, because it quickly became violent, but it's first, it was organized to support the white race supremacy, to oppose the race's mixing, to resist the carpet baggers from New York, from coming, and to restore the white control of the government back to the government.

So that's what it was all about. But quickly escalated into violence, and then in the mid 1870s, or 1871, Congress passed an act that would suspend rid of habebrius corpus. If you have a secret conspiracy, if you're caught in a criminal act as part of a secret conspiracy, which the clan could meet that definition.

And so you could be held indefinitely and not being able to get a trial. So that's what made the clan fizzle out. But we're going to get into how Simmons began thinking about the clan and when that all happened here.

But right there in the heart of Davis's hometown, Paris, and all, I'm sure the memories were still there, and he was born around 1890. And so I'm sure people kept talking about how what the clan did back in those days.

So by the time he got involved, you know, he was already well acquainted with what the history that was. Exactly. And some of the ideas that came into the later reign movement through William Brannum originated, maybe not originated with, but was taught to Brannum from Davis.

We know this very clearly because the Serpent Seed doctrine, while William Brannum denied it in the early years that there were two bloodlines. In the later years, he was teaching the dual seed, the two seed doctrine of Christian identity.

But in the years that he denied it, he was claiming, that he was admitting that he learned this in Roy Davis's church. And he was talking about the most... Dream racist form where they were talking about the people with black skin came from the you know the apes or the monkeys and as we mentioned in the last episode you had people like Daniel Parker who had Influence all the way down into Texas. Well as Davis progresses through his life He also had Influence from the Church of God and Russell Kelsok Carter was a prominent Church of God holiness minister

Who was a follower of C. A. L. Totten and he was teaching also the dual C the two C doctrine So Davis has this line of influence that if you trace it from His origins in Texas all the way up to the NAR you can see It's not the same doctrine when it comes out on the other end But you can see how it morphed and changed and progressed and evolved over time into you know into this this weird thing that exists today But to kick off his origin story You have to look back into the history in Texas and understand that

You know he was a Baptist minister or posing as a Baptist minister one or the other in Texas and He was a grifter. He was writing the rails and he was planting churches all throughout Texas and He was an author He We don't know yet if he was if he had gone to college or not He in some cases he claimed that he was Dr. Roy E. Davis and Other cases he's not but he had this wide swath of influence and As he's writing the rails from church to church in Texas He begins broadening and expanding his areas of influence

covering from Oklahoma and to Texas and to Louisiana and He literally starts covering the entire Eastern side of the Southern United States and While he's doing this he becomes a church planter and he's planted several churches and It appears from what we can tell that he was actually the pastor of some of these churches and We have evidence that suggests that some churches were not aware that he was the pastor of the other churches he had Which gets really funny when you think about it because as he's collecting tithes from church A and traveling to church B and

C and D and so forth Well, he is collecting these ties to go in his mission trips and then doing the same thing from the other churches So he's not double dipping. It's triple quadruple. I don't we don't even know how many churches he had but he realizes that Hey, there is a hack of a lot of money in this religious thing

Yeah, John, I would agree he he was a very sharp man. I mean as As awful as he was as he was very smart and shrewd, so he knew he had some talents, he had a singing talent and I think that carried him a long ways in his career and what he was doing was his singing ability, his charm and his very wits about him and somewhere along the line he got some legal advice or was studied law in some way because he managed every time he was involved in a court trial or maybe had some friends at the top, but he just managed to wiggle

out of things, he was like a worm, he could just wiggle out of anything almost, he could get the support of the people behind him, but he was very smart in using the newspapers and throughout his career he actually managed some newspapers and just wrote in the newspapers a whole lot.

That's just what he did to get his public sway to his opinion, but so back in, I guess it was, it was probably around, it was 20 years old around 1908 and Colonel Simmons said he had thought about the clan for 14 years before he began it in 1915, so you would think you'd have to be around 20 years old or so or 18 to when he said years later he wrote the bylaws of the clan, so he probably started working with Colonel Simmons somewhere around 1908, 1910 and by 1915 the clan was launched, but Simmons says he claimed the idea of the

clan came to him while he was doing circuit writing ministry in Alabama, so and he had a mystical vision, but I'm sure Colonel Simmons was well aware of the clan's activities back in the 1870s as well, he was about the same age as, well I think he was 10 years older than Davis, but he said he took him 14 years to think about how to start this again, but a lot of things came together in 1915 that gave it the momentum it needed and he just decided it was time to launch it once again.

But while he was there dreaming up this and maybe Davis joining him at some point because Davis had started ministry out in Texas and like you said, he was how he managed to be minister of several churches, he could convince, I guess one church that after he got established for several months, you know, the common people there and they got, he won them over that he would just leave and go and do the same somewhere else and he might be telling them I need to go evangelize or I'm going to do ministry here and they still support him,

so he was collecting money, multiple places along the way, he had this knack about him to know where the money was and how to find it, he did that all through Texas, he did that through Georgia, he was even going back and forth to Georgia and Texas until he was discovered and then he tried to make it in Georgia, but he he pastored many churches in Georgia at the same time, so until he was found.

about. Yeah, I never will forget whenever I first discovered all of this history. I was actually tipped off. A lot of I've never actually never told that story, but I was tipped off by a former message believer that the message was founded by the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. And I'll admit, whenever I was first told this, I was in disbelief.

I really did not believe it. I knew that Roy Davis was William Brannum's mentor, pastor. He was connected to William Brannum from, gosh, I think we've traced it back as early as the 1920s all the way to 1965 when he died. These two men were connected. And you can find some rivalries in the middle of this, but in the end, they were still connected so deeply that when Davis was the Imperial Wizard and not even the United States government knew where he was, William Brannum knew his travel itinerary. And he would say, Roy Davis is in this meeting and then say, no, he's in. I got word from. And who did he get word

from? I got word that he was in Florida at this time. Who gives the leader of the post world to healing revival, the travel itinerary of the most notorious white supremacy figure in the United States. So you know that there is a connection. We don't know how deep that ran, but there is a deep connection. But I was tipped off and I began looking into it.

And I didn't understand it at first because I could see Roy Davis in this city and then this other city and then this other city. And my first thought was, well, that's a common name. There's so many different Roy Davises in the world. There's no way this is the same, even if it said Reverend Roy Davis. And then I started seeing newspaper articles referencing some of the cities by the other men. So I knew that they were the same guy because you can see this path of history where he goes. And it ran all the way into Georgia.

I discovered that article talking about him being identified by the lady in Georgia. So he had planted all these churches and he was pastoring a church. And I can't remember the name of the city, but in Georgia, it was a Baptist church, not far from where I grew up actually. And he was also pastoring a church in Texas. The two churches were unaware that he was and he was married to two different women. So he would travel to Texas and be with wife A and travel to Georgia and be with wife B. And we don't even know if there's a CDE and F. It looks like there may have been,

but he had multiple lives and multiple states pastoring multiple churches. And one woman just happened to be the downfall of it all because she went to visit her sister in Texas and Hey, Davis was holding this big revival.

Everybody's welcome, dinner on the ground. And he's out there and the woman goes to team and, wait a minute, that's the pastor at my church in Georgia. And she saw him and then all hell broke loose, man.

She got very, very angry and she started talking to authorities, her Baptist church. And she wanted to kick this man out of the Baptist church. And she, in the end she did. But when I found all that history, my mind was blown.

Like, you can't even make this stuff up. Yeah, that's one thing about the life of Roy Davis. You know, I, I kept saying to my wife, you know, when I'd read this stuff, when I first started researching, I said, you know, you just can't make this stuff up.

That's, that's the best term for it. Because it's just almost unbelievable to, to hear someone that that was so crafty. But yeah, if, if no one has, if no one of our listeners have read that article in the newspaper back in, it was 1917 or so, after he had swindled the bank in Texas and came to Georgia and then the woman recognized him, you really need to get a hold of that article and read it.

It's so well written. The newspapers back then were, has some really good writers and they could make things comical and it's so fun to read that article. But, and how the woman, they almost put the dialogue in the paper so it's almost like reading a novel.

And it's very fun to read. But I think I even put the full text of the article in my book because it's just, it's just so well written. And it tells the story so well.

So so many things like that. But yeah, yeah, Davis was, when the clan started in 1915, he was well established as a minister and had those, had that revival in Texas and then, you know, the woman recognized him in Georgia.

So he was already making his way into Georgia and kept his wife as long as he could. I think they divorced in 1917 because after this was exposed, the woman was suspicious of him and contacted the sheriff and the sheriff tracked him down eventually and his wife, they divorced and then he ended up staying with his wife in Georgia who they had a child by named Catherine, a daughter.

And eventually he, he meets his family in Georgia, named the garrisons and that's an interesting story. Well, I guess get into eventually. I don't wanna get ahead, but there's a little 10 year old girl in that family that travels with them to Jeffersonville and eventually when she's a teenager, that's when he gets into some real trouble up there with this 10 year old girl, which she was a teenager by then, but they eventually, I will spill the beans, but maybe I'll say he eventually married this girl, but he was much older than her.

But so to get back to the clan, you know, there were some of them who started the clan back in 1915 and it's like I said, he had thought about it for many years and Roy had helped him write the bylaws and Roy was made- in his way to Georgia by that time and so in 1915 they they had the ceremony and this was one or two months after some hatred toward a Jewish person named Leo Frank back in August of 1915.

He was being held on some murder charges in jail and so the people around town there, yes it was Atlanta but they just went in and pulled him out of the jail and I guess stormed the jail, pulled him out and lynched him there with no evidence so he'd never got a fair trial and some of these men went with Simmons to Stone Mountain so there was some vigilante justice type people that really wanted to really wanted to push this thing and push this agenda and they were they were all four you know starting the new clan and it was just it was going to be

as violent as the old clan was and turned out to be but so so they met in November 27th I guess in 1915 and took their solemn oaths, I think it was 29 or so men there it was 34 men signed on that time and so they established that on Stone Mountain that night and that was right after the movie birth of the nation came which you know movies have a way of inciting that fervor and so that was the beginnings of it and and they did burn across that night on Stone Mountain but the interesting

thing cross burning was not part of the original clan they they didn't burn any crosses back then it really came from back in the old Scottish families back in the day over in Scotland they would burn crosses back then to summon the men to fight for their clan so back in the days when they fought kings and so forth they would use crosses to do that so so the clan adopted that in their organization Simmons his organization that he started really kind of God of hand pretty quickly after a membership started increasing because the clan had a way of taking things

into their own hands and Simmons was not much of a leader he was very strong white supremacist but he was not much of a leader and we'll see that the clan basically faded out of his hands pretty quickly he couldn't keep control of it and we'll go into that but it's interesting how much money was to be made and I you wonder if he was in it for the money or in it for other reasons I think Roy was in it for both he Roy was wanting to promote the thing to the utmost Simmons seemed to

back off and didn't care he was happy just to you know to get his money and have his position in the clan but he was making a thousand dollars a month at one time which is the equivalent of 220 thousand dollars a year and that was just to be in the backdrop you know that's how much money they paid him to kind of just step aside and take the salary and let us run things so it was a lucrative business back then and I know that's what Roy was after he was always after money like you said he was

a grifter collected money for a manion everybody, even people that shouldn't have been given their money in the first place, and he was just a swindler altogether and posing as a minister. And you mentioned Leo Frank, who is significant in American history, but he is significant to this story as well.

Leo Frank was most historians say wrongly convicted for the murder of Mary Fagan. He was an employee of his working in his factory and he was a Jewish man, but he was a Jewish man from Texas.

He was born in Texas and he moved to eventually landed in Atlanta and started his factory where all of this took place, but it was his trial, conviction, and hanging that eventually led to the creation of both the Ku Klux Klan and the Anti-Defamation League.

So he's very pivotal in creating the two sides, the white supremacy side and the side who is fighting the white supremacy, but as it relates to Davis, since we can connect Davis to the early formation of the Klan, Leo Frank was a highly politicized on both sides of the fence, both the white supremacy and non.

He was highly politicized as a tool to weaponize the American anti-Semitism movement. His trial was painted such that he was such a bad man and he was this Jewish man who had the Jewish people were rising in Atlanta.

He had misused and abused his power to have sex with and murder this female and literally the entire nation was captivated by this trial. So much so that a lynch mob went and basically kidnapped him out of prison and took him all the way to, I think it was near Atlanta where the heart of the mob was collected.

As he hung there dead, there were people who were actually taking photographs with the hanging dead body and making postcards so that they could send them out to their relatives that, hey, I stood here as this Jewish man was hanging.

So it was not the birth of anti-Semitism in the United States, but it was the catalyst that fueled what came next as the anti-Semitism in the United States began to just spread rapidly. He was the key to all of this and knowing now that Davis was with the men who wrote the bylaws of the clan, he was in the very center of all of this controversy and they were weaponizing his trial and his execution to fuel the spreading of the Ku Klux Klan and history shows that that actually worked and it worked very well.

So we can place Davis right here in the heart of this. And again, knowing that Davis's history weaves all the way through the latter reign and beyond, the anti-Semitism and the themes that we're growing into the latter reign movement are largely a result of Davis if you take this one point in history.

Several things that occurred there just really fueled the fires of the clan and fueled the momentum that it got started on, the movie that was put out birth of a nation, the hatred towards Jews and other people of color that they may have been wrongly accused of crimes.

And so it just fueled the fires of the people. And so everybody was ripe for that type of organization to begin for the clan to start. And then you had the Catholic component too as opposed to a white Protestant America that they wanted to keep and keep in control of things.

So as a 1915 start of the clan, it's very likely Roy was there on Stone Mountain with Simmons and his group of 30 or so men. And right after that, not much happened in the clan, the membership sort of increased to about 4,000 members.

And back then, I don't know how much they charged up until that time, but it was around $10 a head for a member. So, but we'll talk about how it took off after that, maybe later in the end of this episode.

But so Roy Davis left Texas about January of 1916. He had just swindled a bank by presenting a check that was probably signed by his brother. And it was a little bit confusing as how that came about, even if you read the article in the paper.

But he was able to cash this check that had no backing of funds. But he cashed the check and he came over to Georgia to I guess join Simmons and start promoting things in Georgia and try to maintain his life back in Texas as well.

But it all caught up with him in about a year later, a year and a half later in May of 1917. That's when he was finally caught, but it was due to that lady that recognized him.

And he received a two-year sentence back then, but it was suspended. So he never served any prison time. And I guess it was a small petty crime, so it may not have deserved jail time.

But we'll see throughout Roy's life, he did spend some time in prison a few times. And it's interesting to note that he used an alias when he came to Georgia so people wouldn't recognize him if his name got well-known.

He called himself Lan. Because his full name was Roy Alanzo Davis. So Lan Davis was a takeoff on the name of Lanzoo. But the woman recognized him and she wrote to the sheriff sheriff to see if he was wanted Because she was suspicious as to him to nine who he was and and the sheriff sure enough There was a reward out for him. So she won't have that reward money. She made it clear What's interesting to note what it was about 27 years old about this time because his birthday rangers from 1888 to 1890 So he was about 25 or 27

And he wrote a note in the paper when he was in held and being held in jail Appealing to the public, you know, and just it was almost like a sob story He said a few days ago. I was in the state of South Carolina preaching and singing the glorious gospel of the Son of God When to my surprise, I was arrested and placed in jail on a felony charge of which I absolutely knew nothing of He said this is the first time I've ever been placed behind cold prison bars And you can imagine my surprise an anticipation of a rough handling by the most excellent gentleman who came to me

So you can say how eloquently he can write And he he thanked the sheriff in this letter for his hospitality. I guess he was trying to appeal to the Mercies of the sheriff and get and he used this letter to get public opinion toward his Plight there. So he ended up You know talking about himself being a minister and how he had no knowledge of how this happened to him and he was in a Senate that charges but but sure enough he got convicted and but got that suspended sentence But that's just his way of trying to wiggle out of things. He could really he was very shrewd and in those ways, John

He was and I think that appealed to Simmons because if you look at what happened with Roy Davis All of his dirty laundry was aired so many times publicly because he was a very public face and he was a very popular face He was popular from Texas the Oklahoma all the way to Georgia and He he had created such a big following and when all of this dirty laundry was aired It was aired in multiple locations wherever he had a presence and The clan was aware that that this was aired because Whenever he would make his defense before leading up to a trial or a conviction

He would use the clan as a weapon against whoever was against him and So whenever it was all brought out the the clan basically had rejected him. However It was after that point in time that Simmons began working very closely with Davis and Davis became William Joseph Simmons official spoke person So Simmons had to have known all of this dirty history and he simply didn't care because The influence and power that Davis held over massive amounts of people that was very appealing to somebody who was trying to spread a white supremacy movement. They really didn't care if this was an ethical

guy or not. All they cared was his level of influence, which if you take it away from the white supremacy side enough, flip that over to the religious side, that's also key to understand, because he has that level of influence on both the white supremacy and the religious movements in the United States. Yeah, John, there's a lot of friends and high places that help you out with the clan. Being part of the clan was, it's just part of a secret society, and they called it the envisable empire, and it really, it might not have taken off in the first four years, but by

1920, the membership really took off, and there's some reasons why it took off like it did. In 1920, Simmons, him not being a great leader, Roy was probably doing all he could to promote the clan, you know, pastoring churches, so he was very busy, but he used those churches that he pastored in Georgia to hold some clan meetings, and eventually when the deacons would find out, that's when he would be exposed and ousted, because most of them, most of the true churches that he was with, the people that were gullible that accepted him, when they found out what he was,

you know, they definitely quickly ousted him. But in 1920, there were some publicity promoters of PT Barnum Circus, named Edward Clark and Elizabeth Tyler, and they were out there in Georgia, and they got involved in the clan, and they saw the potential for this to grow, and Dumbin promoters, they knew how to manage things so that they could spread the word quickly and get people interested in this. So they had a lot of tools at their disposal, you know, to get this spread and start membership to skyrocketing. So I said it was a $10 membership fee, so they wanted

part of that fee, and if they were promised that, that's how they got involved. It was split amongst them, and the leaders and the recruiter. So if you were a recruiter, just a lay member, recruiting members, you could probably get two to three dollars for every person that you recruited into the clan. So it was very lucrative. It was kind of like these pyramid scheme businesses, for everybody you bring into the business, you'll get so much money. So by, that was in 1920. So Senator interesting to bring Davis in here. By 1921 in July, Davis was pastoring the Acquarth Baptist

Church, and that's where he began holding some clan meetings at the church because he wanted his part of that $10 fee, and if he could recruit all the members, the male members of that church who were obviously white, and all the other churches he was pastoring, he could make a pretty good sum of money there, and then he would have more support, you know, for what he was doing. So they held meetings at the church and then there was some letters.

Somehow the people in Texas, which were the brother-in-law of his wife Emma at the time in Texas, had the children and they knew what Davis had done in 1915 to swindle the bank and all his history. They put together this letter and they sent it to the deacons of the church, warning them about Davis. And by that time, of course, he had a second wife and his daughter was five years old at the time, his new daughter. He had three children with his other wife back in Texas who were growing up. So these charges were brought with him

with a letter and then in my book, I detail this, but after that, they actually sent them a whole box of stuff, a whole box of articles and evidence that of what all he had done because they really wanted to expose the church and say, you don't need this man to be your pastor and they were let him let them know that they need to get rid of him. And so by that time, that's when Davis was exposed and then he fled to Oklahoma, you know, right after that with his wife, you know, and daughter Catherine. Say your wife was named Elva, Elva Cotta Davis. So, but Roy's strategy,

every time he got accused of something, his strategy was like politicians of today deny every charge against you no matter how true it is and then attack those who make the charge. And that's why that's why his strategy was and it was trying to be a pretty good strategy as it is of politicians today, you know, they get accused of many things, very bad things and they just deny it and then they attack the ones bringing the charges and try to bring stuff up on them. But after Roy fled to Oklahoma, the clan again, about a hundred thousand members due to those publicists by September of

1921 and by the end of 1922, it was about a million members. So that's quite a few $10 fees paid out, you know, that's $10 million and then they had by that time that $6 million in assets and today's money. So quite quite a bit of money there in the clan, so quite a lucrative business.

So by this time with the clan getting all that membership, now there was factions beginning to develop. Now there was a man out in Texas named Hiram Wesley Evans and with Simmons being a very lame leader, he now wanted to oust him as a leader. So they had some disagreements and by 1923, 24's when it came to a head and and they was able to oust Simmons so we can go into that as well as a famous newspaper article that exposes Davis again. I never will forget whenever I started putting all of these images together of the many ways that he was making money. He was

making money by swendling people by his release. just campaigns, his evangelical campaigns, his faith, he was a faith healer before, even before the post-World War II healing revival, he was holding faith healing, um, events, and, you know, and, and then you have the pyramid scheme of the clan.

What really struck me as funny is that during his days working with Semen, he was extremely vocal supporting the Ku Klux Klan, and then whenever we'll get into this history, you know, down the line, but when the clan, the original 1915 clan fell after being exposed in Washington, he, um, he shifted to religion, and he found that there was so much money to be made holding these religious campaigns that he seems to have focused all of his energy and attention to that, and just put the whole white supremacy pyramid scheme to the side while he made all of his money in religion, which is really funny when you think

of how this progressed over time, he, he being William Brannum's mentor, and then Brannum holding similar revival, very, very similar, similar to how Roy Davis was doing it, and the newspaper articles described in the, uh, newspapers were describing the meetings with William Brannum where it required two hefty men to carry the suitcases of money away from the revival. So this is something that he learned from Roy Davis, and again, you trace this all the way into the new apostolic reformation today. The, the most common thing among all of these movements that appear to have no connections, the thing that binds

them all together is the money, because every single one of these weird religious groups that exist today, everybody's crying out, they're making so much money, look at their mansions and their airplanes and their big buildings, all of this stuff. Well, Davis was, like, Davis was the prototype for this big expansion of mixing politics, religion with swindling the people with getting their money. Yeah, the money trail is where it's at, and that's if you follow the money trail, uh, it generally leads to the, to what you're looking for, uh, you know, for, uh, Brannum did learn a lot of his techniques from Davis,

I'm sure, and they were chummy. I mean, even in the, if you read the 1950 voice of healing article, it's, it's very revealing, uh, all, all Davis said in there, Davis pretty much refuted the life story of Brannum and that and, and how he came into the ministry. But, uh, the offering part, you know, Brannum always said, you know, I never took an offering, uh, you know, just another half truth, uh, you know, his, of course, he took up offerings every, uh, meeting he had probably because he, it was known that it was known like he said

they carried suitcases full of money out of the building. So, how he was able to say, I never took an offering, I don't know, maybe he could say that and say I didn't participate in passing the hat, but his leaders with him or his associates with him definitely took the offering up.

So the money was a big thing, and we know the assets he had when he died, it was quite a sum. Some of money, much more money than I'd ever see in my lifetime.

So Evans was in competition with Simmons because Evans wanted to lead the clan. I think he was a dentist, a very, very educated man, but he wanted to house Simmons's leader. So by 1924, Simmons sold his rights to the clan because Simmons owned the copy right, he copied right at this and owned the rights to everything about the clan.

But in the end, Simmons gave up his rights to it and sold those in 1924. And it's interesting to note that I don't have the arc right at hand here, but there's a famous making article.

See, Roy was in Oklahoma at this time from 1921 to 23, but Roy just couldn't wait to get back to Georgia. You know, he had to let the fires that flamed up while he was in Akworth Baptist Church and other churches he was pastoring, die down, the publicity that he got in 1921 when he fled to go live in Oklahoma and pastor that church for a couple of years.

You know, he left those fires die down, but he was just anxious to get back to Georgia because that's where all the action was, but I'm sure he promoted the clan while he was in Oklahoma up there, wrote articles for the paper.

And if you look at the trail of newspaper articles about him pasturing churches up there, it's almost like he left abruptly. He didn't. There was not much of a trail off saying there was no articles saying, all the pastor of our churches now has decided he's called back to Georgia.

It's almost like he just left town and just left them hanging, which is he was prone to do. You know, he would leave town suddenly, just like he did in Jeffersonville when he finally made it up there or Louisville, he would leave town and, you know, he would have others that would take over to carry on what he was doing, such as the way Brannum did up in Jeffersonville.

But with Evans in charge, you know, he came back to Georgia in 1923 and Davis, they may have forgotten him. He worked in some different towns, but he became head of the Farmer's Union.

You know, he pastored additional churches. He made his way down in the South Georgia, towns like Migs, Georgia, Tipton, Georgia. And then in 1923 and making Georgia a famous article in July of 1923 came out.

So he'd already come back to Georgia for maybe a year or two and was just getting started again. And then this article came out about his... dual life that he led and and then then the farmer's union ousted him on the count of that.

They want to know part of Roy Davis when they realized who he was. So that that was the second downfall of Davis in Georgia. He didn't make it very long again. And some interesting things happened in mixed Georgia. You know, he was down there quite a bit. He actually ran a newspaper down there called the brick bat, which was strictly a clan newspaper promoting promoting the clan.

And when he when he was had to give that up because of this article that came out in making and that's that's a very interesting article. Your our listeners are look up and read.

I dug it up and actually contacted the newspaper in the in making itself to get the article because you can't find it on newspapers.com. So actually got a copy of that and they were so willing to do that for me, which I was very glad to get it because I wanted the full article out of piece of it. But down a mix after he left that and because the brick bat was being accused of being, you know, very racist, very clan oriented and it's funny that the the whole newspaper and and a man lost his business, the man that ran the newspaper for the town there after he took over

after Davis. It burned completely to the ground and he lost his house, his newspaper. And you wonder sometimes if Davis didn't have a hand in that because there were several times in the pattern of Davis's life that things burned down when he was a part of it. That newspaper place was one. Even Brother Brown said the press that he was running in Jeffersonville burned down one night. And then when Davis left town, his church burned down. So there was many times like that. So you wonder if Davis was not also an arsonist in some ways or the folks that hated him so

much, you know, made sure his, his ventures didn't make it as well. So it's kind of interesting to see that pattern in his life as well. It's just such a crazy, fascinating history. And I'm sure the listeners who are, they're expecting us to be talking about the framework of the new Apostolic Reformation. What does this grifter have to do with everything? And as we, as we'll show as we go on, he has everything to do with this thing. This, this is one of the most connected men in religion, politics, white supremacy, the whole gambit, right? And he's a criminal. And he is

a big amest. He's got multiple wives, multiple states. And he is taking small girls across state lines to have sex with them, which is, you know, it's another story for another day. But that, all of that trail of history where this gets really interesting and critical to understand that history follows him everywhere he goes, because he's such a outspoken, such a public, violently opposed to different factions of religion and politics.

that whenever his opposition rises up, they try to dig up dirt on him. Well, oh my gosh, the dirt that they can find on this guy is unbelievable. So then it gets published in newspapers almost everywhere he goes.

And like you said, it makes people angry when they realize that they have been deceived by one of the most vile individuals known to man. And so they'll burn down his house, his church, his printing presses, or he's doing it himself, so it looks like they do.

We don't know, but something happens everywhere he goes. And it is this man who inspires the leader of the post-World War II healing revival, one of two catalysts for the Latter-Rain movement. The other catalyst, which gets funny, I'll play the clip here in a minute, but the other catalyst, Franklin Hall, they openly talked about starting with money.

They would start their revivals and they were laughing about the amount of money they were collecting. And I'll just let Franklin Hall speak for himself and William Brandon with him. What are you going to start it with? I'm going to start a money.

I'll help you start. All right, so that's fine. And you know, so this whole thing is about money. Pure plain and simple. It's all about money. So this guy goes into Jeffersonville, well into Louisville, Kentucky, gets ran out of Louisville and is trying to run from the law, plants the church that literally becomes the headquarter church for what became the message.

For the message for the post-World War II healing revival. And while all of this is going on, his dirty laundry is being aired all over the newspapers. So every single person who's connected to him in that church is also aware that this is not a very good man, but they stick with him. And what I have learned to what I've come to understand in all of this is that it wasn't just that he was a grifter.

This was a very brilliant leader because he would go into an area, he would plan a church, and he would make them so charged for his agenda that whenever he would get sent to prison, ran out of town, whatever it was, they would continue his agenda in that location.

And as we'll get further in the history, we'll under come to understand. He did the same thing in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and William Brannum is literally continuing his agenda and mimicking every single aspect of his ministry from the faith healing to the collection of money, to the printing press of the whole bit. He literally becomes a clone of Roy E. Davis, which is so funny.

But we'll get into that more as we go, and there's just so much more to talk about. As we were talking through this, John, I was thinking of about 15 episodes that we could do just...

right here in this time period on Davis. But we'll keep focused and the listeners can follow us as we go through what eventually led to the NAR. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more information about Roy Davis and William Branum, read the persuasive preacher, the gifted profit, and the noble politician. For more information on the dark side of Latter-Rain, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-Rain to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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