Detroit's flamboyant Prophet Jones

This prophesy began the long, flamboyant career of Detroit's Rev. James F. (Prophet) Jones, who at the height of his popularity claimed to have six million followers nationally.

Jones was born Nov.. 24, 1907, in Birmingham, Alabama, to the railroad brakeman and a school teacher.

Already recognized as a prophet, at the age of six he joined and began preaching sermons to a Birmingham sect known as Triumph the Church and Kingdom of God in Church, similar in character to the one he later founded in Detroit. At 11 he quit school to devote full time to preaching.

In 1938 The Triumph sect sent the 21-year-old Jones to Detroit as a missionary where enthusiastic converts soon pressed expensive gifts upon him. The gifts, his superiors ruled, were rightfully the property of the church. Rather than give them up, Jones broke away to launch his own sect....