Lee Vayle
Lee Vayle was one of William Branham's closest collaborators, serving as editor, publisher, public interpreter, and doctrinal assistant for the Message movement, with Branham honoring him as "Doctor" and relying on him to help shape, preserve, and promote teachings that later became central to Branham's cult of personality; Vayle's reported explanations of the hidden racial meaning behind Serpent's Seed, including claims that the serpent produced a "colored" or Black race through Eve, show how Branham's public doctrine, private interpretations, and later Message defenses worked together to obscure the white supremacist implications of Branham's theology while continuing to transmit them through trusted leaders and sister churches.
Lee Vayle was a close friend, business associate, editor, and publisher for William Branham. He was respected by Branham with the honorary title of “Doctor” Lee Vayle,[1] and the man Branham chose to help sway public opinion by introducing the beginning of doctrines Branham would later complete, as is identified in the “Secret Audio Letter to Lee Vayle”.[2] To Branham’s “Message” cult of personality, Vayle was like the Scribes of the ancient world, assisting Branham with documenting and safekeeping information.
Like Branham’s other partner, Raymond “Junior” Jackson,[3] Vayle held knowledge of the secret version of Branham’s “Serpent Seed” doctrine. Former members of Branham’s “Message” cult following clearly remember Vayle describing the Serpent as “10 feet tall and black as the ace of spades”, and after a sexual union with Eve in the Garden of Eden, the result was — according to Branham through Vayle — the “black race of people”.
In 2003, this doctrine was questioned by a former cult member to a leader in Vayle’s sect. Though Branham and other white supremacists frequently used the word “colored” to describe people with black skin, the response given was that although Vayle used the word “colored” to describe the race that was produced, Vayle was describing a multi-colored race.
Yes, he did say brother Branham said the serpent was a giant and that explains the giant people in Genesis 6. But the words used was colored, which could mean a mixed coloring.[4]
Branham, however, was very open about the people he considered to be "colored", and a majority of his followers are aware that like many white supremacists of the era, Branham used the word "colored" as a polite way to describe people with black skin. During the heat of the battle during the Civil Rights Movement, Branham belittled African Americans who fought for equal rights.
Hybreeding, oh, it's such a curse. Go back to where God started. Let's go back to the beginning. Go back to where God brought us, what we're supposed to be. I say this with respects. I say this with honor. I'm going to Africa, but, you know what, to my precious colored brother and sisters. One of the greatest mistakes this nation made, it made it on November the 11th, this year. That was its great, fatal mistake. One of the greatest mistakes that the colored race ever made, was down in Louisiana and over in there, when they voted for Kennedy, the other night, put him in. They actually spit on that dress of Abraham Lincoln, where the blood of the Republican party that freed them, and voted a Catholic. Which, Booth shot Lincoln. And he died for the race of people, to free them and make them not slaves. Then, turn around and vote for a Democrat, and a Catholic, besides. They brought one of the greatest disgraces they ever wrought, because (why?) the white man, with his scholarship, had give them a lot of ballyhoo. That's exactly right.[5]