A “Living God” Incarnate

This is a report of the psychologic development of a very religious mulatto woman. She was among the leaders in one branch of the “Church of the Living God.” This record is made from many of her sermons and testimonies for God, supplemented by some personal conferences, and some correspondence.

Let us agree to call our subject Lany Jency. When I first met her she was about thirty-five years of age. She had been born in Virginia, with pleasant features and a light brown complexion. When very young her parents gave her over to the family of a white physician, to be raised in exchange for what help she could give in the household. As a mere child she had often wished for a white baby of her own. When she was fourteen years of age she was seduced by a son of that physician. Lany thinks that her seducer was then about thirty-five years old. At the age of sixteen she had her first baby by him. At eighteen she had a miscarriage. Having been made to feel that she was inferior because of her skin, she hoped to exalt herself by means of a “white” baby. Accordingly the seduction was more easily accomplished than would otherwise have been possible. Because of this seduction a new intensity came to her guilty-inferiority feeling.

Because of her “white” baby her brothers and sisters refused to recognize her any longer. Lany was also put out of the Baptist church, and out of the doctor's family. However, the father of her child provided another home for her, and continued his relations with her, for about two years more. She claims never to have enjoyed the sexual relations with her white lover, until after the baby was born. This apparently was due to the pain produced by a relatively large organ. The pains of these experiences influenced her subsequent theologic rationalizations. She also ascribes some womb trouble to the same cause. It is a safe guess that the miscarriage had most to do with that. All these troubles, doubtless combined with her guilty inferiority-superiority conf