Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

   As I alluded to at the start of the book, my parents are God-fearing people and they raised a strict religious household. Their spiritual guidance came under the tutelage of Prophet J. C. Williams. Prophet Williams is a gifted leader through whom God has blessed and healed many afflicted people. People from all across the US and around the world have come to him for healing, to find Husbands, to find Wives, and to be saved from sin.
   Prophet Williams became our Pastor when my Father, Mother, Sister and I first came to Milwaukee. As Prophet Williams, now Bishop Williams tells the story, my father came to the church with my sister in his arms and me in tow, crying. He says that he didn’t understand why I cried so much, but that I cried a whole lot. I remember Prophet Williams as one God has blessed with the gift of Prophecy.

    Sunday nights were special nights when Prophet Williams would host what we used to call “pool night.” Now, this was not a real live pool with real live water, but an imaginary one centered around the alter of the church. God had given Prophet Williams a revelation years ago to start the pool through his first wife, Mother Ruth Williams. The theme of the pool was fashioned after the “Pool of Bethesda” cited in the book of St. John 5:2. Although, as I mentioned it was imaginary.

    The time period was the early 1960s and 1970s during the Great Migration. There were plenty of jobs to go around in the city. Places like A.O. Smith, The Heil Company, and Allis Chambers were booming industries in Milwaukee. Blacks had begun to develop a simple but good life back then. They worked hard during the week, played hard on Saturdays, and attended Church on Sundays, giving God thanks for blessing them. Well, many of them did anyway. That’s our heritage. If you were to ask many of the Saints around the US today, my prediction is that at least two out of ten would tell you that they have heard of or know of someone who has heard of Prophet J.C.Williams from Milwaukee.