Frank Cherry

Frank S. Cherry ({{circa|1875}}–1963) was an American man who was the founder and leader of one of the early Black Hebrew Israelite groups in the United States.

Biography

Little is known about Cherry's early and adult life, other than that he was born in the Southern United States. He did not go to school but educated himself in both Hebrew and Yiddish and worked as a sailor, during which he claims to have been declared a prophet. He was a 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Mason, and member of the Big Brothers organization.{{Cite web|title=Cherry, Frank S.|url=https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-35524|access-date=2021-04-25|website=Oxford African American Studies Center|year=2013|language=en|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.35524|isbn=978-0-19-530173-1|last1=Michel|first1=David}}

Cherry claimed to have had a vision that African Americans are the descendants of the ancient Israelites, during his time abroad.{{cite book|last=Fernheimer|first=Janice W.|title=Stepping Into Zion: Hatzaad Harishon, Black Jews, and the Remaking of Jewish Identity|publisher=University of Alabama Press|year=2014|isbn=9780817318246|page=10|quote=One of these groups, Prophet Cherry's Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of Truth is the oldest known Black Judaic sect. It was originally established in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886. Prophet Cherry argued they were part of the original Israelite tribes chased from Babylonia (and, they claim, into Central and Western Africa where they were later sold into slavery) by the Romans in 70 CE.}}{{cite web |last1=Butts |first1=Jimmy |title=The Origin and Insufficiency of the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement |url=https://www.equip.org/article/origin-insufficiency-black-hebrew-israelite-movement-article/ |publisher=CRI |language=English |date=21 July 2017 |quote=Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a man named Frank Cherry claimed to receive a vision through which God told him to present the message that African Americans are the true descendants of the biblical Hebrews. This eventually resulted in the establishment of the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, around 1886.}} He then established and led a congregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1886, where he preached that white people were inherently evil and hated by God.{{Cite web|url=https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/history-hebrew-israelism|title=History of Hebrew Israelism|website=Southern Poverty Law Center|date=29 January 2010 }} He would attempt to spread this belief in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he established the Church of God in 1915. Tenets of his group, known as the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations, were based on black nationalist rhetoric of the time and he himself was a supporter of Marcus Garvey.{{cite book|last=Hutchinson|first=Dawn|title=Antiquity and Social Reform: Religious Experience in the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and Nation of Yahweh|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2010|isbn=9781443823081|page=139|quote=The first was the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations founded by F.S. Cherry in 1886 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Cherry preached that Adam, Eve, and Jesus were black and that African Americans lost their Hebrew identity during slavery. Later, William S. Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896 in Lawrence, Kansas. Crowdy taught that blacks were heirs of the lost tribes of Israel, while white Jews were descendants of inter-racial marriages between Israelites and white Christians.}}{{cite book|title=The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religions|last=Rubel|first=Nora L.|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=2009|isbn=9780253004086|editor-last1=Curtis IV|editor-first1=Edward E.|page=51-56|chapter='Chased Out of Palestine': Prophet Cherry's Church of God and Early Black Judaisms in the United States|editor-last2=Sigler|editor-first2=Danielle Brune}} Cherry also espoused antisemitism, claimed that the earth is square, and professed that Jesus would return in the year 2000 to start a race war.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZiScvbS6-cC&q=who+was+frank+cherry+black+israelites&pg=RA4-PA73|title=Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America [Five Volumes]|first=Eugene V.|last=Gallagher|date=22 January 2019|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780313050787}}

Cherry was engaged in construction and maintenance, working on freight ships and railroads before taking over a religious congregation.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QQA4yUMzQzgC&q=who+was+frank+cherry+black+israelites&pg=PT76|title=Black Jews in Africa and the Americas|first=Tudor|last=Parfitt|date=4 February 2013|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674071506}} He taught that God, Jesus, Adam, and Eve were black{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780820313771|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780820313771/page/130 130]|quote=prince benjamin f. cherry.|title=African Americans in the South: Issues of Race, Class, and Gender|first1=Hans A.|last1=Baer|first2=Yvonne|last2=Jones|date=April 10, 1992|publisher=University of Georgia Press|via=Internet Archive}} and established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations in 1886 which has served as a focal point of the modern Black Hebrew Israelite movement.

After his death, he was succeeded as the church's leader by his son Prince Benjamin F. Cherry.

Shais Rishon, a Black Orthodox Jewish writer and activist, stated that Cherry was "a southern Baptist who never belonged nor converted to any branch of Judaism."{{cite web|url=https://tribeherald.com/a-case-of-mistaken-identity-black-jews-hebrew-israelites/ |title=A Case of Mistaken Identity: Black Jews & Hebrew Israelites |date=16 August 2020 |publisher=TribeHerald.com |accessdate=2022-04-24}}

Frank Cherry

Biography

See also

References

Further reading