Hulon Mitchell Jr. was the son of an Oklahoma Pentecostal preacher, an air force veteran and an economics graduate. He passed through the Nation of Islam and several other identities before arriving in Miami in 1979 and declaring that he was Yahweh ben Yahweh — God, the son of God.
The Nation of Yahweh grew quickly and did visible good. It bought and renovated derelict buildings in Liberty City, ran businesses, put people to work, and provided structure in neighborhoods that had very little. Miami's mayor gave Mitchell a key to the city in 1990.
Beneath it was a hierarchy, and at the top of the hierarchy was an inner circle called the Brotherhood, whose members were known as Death Angels.
Admission to the Brotherhood required the murder of a white person, with a body part brought back as proof. Members also killed defectors from the organization, and in 1986 firebombed a Delray Beach neighborhood in a dispute over a property.
Three mechanisms make this case worth studying beyond its horror.
Divinity as an unappealable authority. Most leaders in this part claim revelation, which is a channel to authority. Mitchell claimed to be the authority. There is no possible appeal from an instruction given by God in person, and no scripture against which to check it. Lifton's sacred science and doctrine over person are combined into a single claim.
Violent initiation as a lock. Chapter 165 describes the mechanism in the LRA: a person who has committed an atrocity on the group's instruction cannot leave, because leaving means facing what they did without the framework that authorized it, and because the group holds the knowledge. It is the same instrument here, applied to adults who joined voluntarily.
And genuine benefit as insulation. This is the pattern chapter 151 identified and it recurs here in its strongest form. The Nation of Yahweh really did rebuild housing and really did employ people. Members and the surrounding community had received something, and reciprocity — plus the reasonable observation that the organization was doing more for the neighborhood than the city was — muted internal criticism and delayed external scrutiny for years.
The prosecution in 1990 was a federal racketeering case, built on the testimony of former members who had been in the Brotherhood. Mitchell and six followers were convicted of conspiracy in May 1992; the jury did not convict on the substantive murder counts, and several defendants were acquitted.
He was sentenced to eighteen years, released on parole in 2001 with a condition that he not associate with his followers, and died of cancer in 2007.