Promised Land: Father Divine’s Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York

Father Divine lifted the despairing from the gutter to self-respect, but his methods troubled many observers.  He commanded substantial wealth, but he mystified much of the world as to how he acquired it.  He had charismatic power but his talk of his supernatural abilities was difficult for the public to accept.  His movement, whose peak years lasted from 1938 to 1943, constituted one of the most completely interracial groups in America, yet large numbers of Americans found this to be offensive.

This book focuses on Father Divine as he led in creating interracial, utopian communities in overwhelmingly white Ulster County, New York.  By 1939, Divine had led in creating thirty such communities in the county — they were experimental, cooperative, nonviolent, and about 2,300 people were living in them.  While the settled population of the county was disturbed by the arrival of these communities, Divine had high hopes for them as models for the world.  Divine and his followers called them a Promised Land to which God was now leading his followers as God had once led the ancient Hebrews to their Promised Land.  The book concentrates on Divine’s movement in the period from 1935, when it established its first Ulster County community in New Paltz, until 1985 when it sold off its last one, in Kingston.  Mabee details how each community was founded and what it did, as well as the selected stories of individuals who in their deeds illuminate the movement at large.