1914

Juanita Moore (October 19, 1914 – January 1, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actress. She was the fifth African American to be nominated for an Academy Award in any category, and the third in the Supporting Actress category at a time when only a single African American had won an Oscar. Her most famous role was as Annie Johnson in the movie Imitation of Life (1959).

Born in Los Angeles in 1914, Moore was a chorus girl at the Cotton Club before becoming a film extra while working in theater. After making her film debut in Pinky (1949), she had a number of bit parts and supporting roles in motion pictures through the 1950s and 1960s. However, her role in Imitation of Life (1959), a remake, as housekeeper Annie Johnson, whose daughter Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) passes for white, won her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.  She was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for the role. When the two versions of Imitation of Life were released together on DVD, the earlier film was released in 1934,  one of the bonus features was a new interview with Juanita Moore.

Moore continued to perform in front of the camera, with a role in the movie Disney's The Kid (2000) and guest-starring roles on television shows Dragnet, Marcus Welby, M.D., ER and Judging Amy. 

On April 23, 2010, a new print of Imitation of Life (1959) was screened at the TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles, to which Moore and co-star Kohner were invited. After the screening, the two women appeared on stage for a question-and-answer session hosted by TCM's Robert Osborne. Moore and Kohner received standing ovations.

Moore was married for 50 years to Charles Burris.  He died in 2001.  He was a Los Angeles bus driver and, although she was a frequent passenger, she had stepped out in front of his approaching bus to cross the street to a local bar, hoping to find someone to study for the Inès Serrano role in the play No Exit -- Serrano was a lesbian, and Moore was unfamiliar with the lifestyle. She and Burris married a few weeks later.

Her grandson is actor/producer Kirk Kelley-Kahn, who is CEO/President of "Cambridge Players - Next Generation", a theatre troupe whose founding members included Moore, Esther Rolle, Helen Martin, Lynn Hamilton and Royce Wallace.  

Moore died at her home in Los Angeles on January 1, 2014, from natural causes. She was 99 years old.

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Father Divine

On February 6, 1914, several followers' husbands and local preachers had Divine arrested for lunacy. This actually expanded his ministry, with reporters and worshippers deluging his prison cell. Some whites even began calling on him. Former Mercer University professor and lay preacher, J. R. Moseley of Macon, Georgia, befriended Divine and arranged for J. B. Copeland, a Mercer alum and respected Valdosta lawyer, to represent him pro bono.  Moseley was interested in what he termed "this unusual man" in his autobiography "Manifest Destiny." Decades later, in the 1930s, Moseley met Divine in New York City when he received word that the man going by that name may in fact be the same person he met in Georgia. Father Divine was found mentally sound in spite of "maniacal" beliefs. He had given no name when arrested and was tried as "John Doe (alias God)".

In 1914, Father Divine traveled to Brooklyn, New York, with a very modest number of followers and an all-black congregation. Although he claimed to be God incarnate fulfilling Biblical prophecy, he lived relatively quietly.

He and his disciples formed a commune in a black middle-class apartment building. He forbade sex, alcohol, tobacco, and gambling among those who were living with him. By 1919, he had adopted the name Reverend Major Jealous Divine. "Reverend Major" was chosen as a title of respect and authority, while "Jealous" was a reference to Exodus 34:14, where the Lord says he is a "jealous god". His followers affectionately called him Father Divine.

In this period, Father Divine married a follower, Penninah, who was decades his senior. Like Father Divine, her early life is obscure, but she is believed to be from Macon, Georgia. The date of the marriage is unknown but probably occurred between 1914 and 1917.

In addition to lending her dignified look to Father Divine, Penninah served to defuse rumors of impropriety between him and his many young female followers. Both Penninah, who was often called "Mother Divine", and Father Divine would assert that the marriage was never physically consummated.