Hulon Mitchell Jr.

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Hulon Mitchell Jr. a.k.a Yahweh ben Yahweh (October 27, 1935 - May 7, 2007), was the leader of the an Afro-american religious sect Nation of Yahweh.

Hulon Mitchell Jr. was born the first of fifteen children in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. His father was a Pentecostal minister who emphasized the Book of Exodus in his preachings. His childhood was one of relative poverty made worse by marginalization caused by Jim Crow laws.

After a period of military service and a period as a psychology major at an Enid, Oklahoma university, he became interested in spiritual movements. He also became interested in the "Civil Rights" movement organizing sit-ins in Oklahoma. Although he quickly grew disillusioned with this and as "Yahweh ben Yahweh" he denounced Martin Luther King Jr. as "that dead dog preacher."

This led to a growing interest in black nationalism and some study of the Nation of Islam. He later studied other groups as well and by the late 1970s pronounced himself "Yahweh ben Yahweh", meaning "the LORD Son of the LORD," Yahweh being related to the Tetragrammaton, or the name for God in the Hebrew Bible. He was married and had four children, and was divorced by the time his religious sect was founded.

The religious sect set up its headquarters in Liberty City, Florida. As "Yahweh ben Yahweh" he emphasized a mixture of Negro supremacy and violent racial separatism. God was "black" and blacks would become powerful through him. He also emphasized White Europeans and Jews as infidels and oppressors. Lastly he increasingly emphasized loyalty to himself. He ultimately cultivated a loyalty extreme enough that members apparently pledged to kill his enemies.

To become a member of the inner circle of his organization, applicants had to kill a "white devil" and bring Mitchell a body part - an ear, nose or finger - as proof of the kill. Between April and October 1986, according to court papers, Mitchell's "Death Angels" descended on Miami frequently to kill random white people.

His group took over a series of buildings in Miami. These buildings allowed for the level of black separatism he encouraged. He became the living messianic ruler in this culture. As ruler he is said to have been absolute and theocratic. Those who dissented could face beatings or death. Still at the time his business and charity efforts earned him respect in the community. The mayor of Miami, Florida declared October 7, 1990, "Yahweh ben Yahweh Day." This occurred a month before his indictment for his crimes.

Although his followers remained devoted to him, by the 1990s he was in trouble with the law. From 1990 until his release on September 26, 2001, he served 11 years of an 18-year sentence on a RICO conviction after he and several other Nation of Yahweh members were convicted of conspiracy in more than a dozen murders. He was acquitted of first degree murder charges in 1992. He only faced conviction for conspiracy. The testimony of Robert Rozier played a key role in that. Mr. Rozier is a former NFL player, who admitted to several of the murders and testified against Hulon Mitchell Jr., in return for a lighter sentence.

He was released on parole in 2001 and returned to Miami, but his activities were strongly restricted until a few months before his death. He was prohibited from reconnecting with his old congregation. To assure this he was restricted from any form of speech by telephone, computer, radio or television that could place him in contact with any congrgational members. In 2006, as he became increasingly ill with prostate cancer, his attorney Jayne Weintraub petitioned the U.S. District Court for his release from parole in order to permit him to "die with dignity". However, his lawyers’ attempt to end the conditions for his parole eventually succeeded. Hulon Mitchell Jr. died May 7th, 2007 from prostate cancer.

A ruling on a failed appeal, U.S. v. Yahweh Ben Yahweh (792 F. Supp. 104) starts:

Violent crime cases are the exception in federal courts. The instant case is arguably the most violent case ever tried in a federal court: the indictment charges the sixteen defendants on trial with 14 murders by means such as beheading, stabbing, occasionally by pistol shots, plus severing of body parts such as ears to prove the worthiness of the killer. They were also charged with arson of a slumbering neighborhood using molotov cocktails. The perpetrators were ordered to wait outside the innocent victims' homes wearing ski masks and brandishing machetes to deter the victims from fleeing the flames.

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