[image, right: screen shot from page 81 of Willie Wooten's 2005 book Breaking The Curse Off Black America]
In 2005, Justice at The Gate ministry head Alice Patterson endorsed a 2005 book, by her fellow apostle Willie Wooten, which blamed Martin Luther King, Jr. for an alleged 40-year curse on African Americans and provided, as documentation of King's alleged misdeeds, a website link to writing posted at a white supremacist, Holocaust denial website that calls for repeal of the 19th Amendment.
Since 2002 Alice Patterson, working closely with Houston pastor and civil rights leader C.L. Jackson, and history revisionist David Barton, has brought a stirring message to African Americans: the Republican Party is on their side and always has been.
In her 2010 book Bridging The Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation, Patterson claimed that such efforts have helped to boost Rick Perry's take of the black vote in Texas, from the Republican national average of 9 percent, up to 16 percent for Perry, who in 2004 praised Patterson, Jackson, and Barton in an official governor's speech.
On August 6th, 2011, Texas Governor Rick Perry stood onstage alongside C. Peter Wagner's ICA apostle Alice Patterson and pastor C.L. Jackson, while Perry gave his speech (video of Perry speech) at The Response prayer event.
C. Peter Wagner, whose apostles dominated the event, which served as Perry's de facto presidential campaign kickoff, told Fresh Air host Terry Gross, in an NPR interview aired October 3, 2011, that Alice Patterson had organized The Response, per Rick Perry's direct request.
If Rick Perry wins the Republican presidential nomination, Alice Patterson is positioned to play a key role in working to convince African Americans to vote for Perry, and her efforts would build upon aggressive efforts, by Wagner's ICA apostles, and leaders in the wider New Apostolic Reformation movement, to claim the mantle of "social justice" and the legacy Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement.
QUOTES
"It is my belief that the leadership, who spearheaded the civil rights movement, released ungodliness into the land and now we see the fruit of it as a curse upon our land!" - Willie Wooten, author of Breaking The Curse Off Black America [2005, Lumen-us Publications]
"Apostle Willie F. Wooten from New Orleans, your friendship and leadership are dear to me. I honor and appreciate you." - Alice Patterson, from Bridging The Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation [emphasis in original], page 257
[below: quote from writing by Dr. Ed Fields, on web page linked to on page 81 of Wooten's book Breaking The Curse Off Black America]
"Martin Luther King was affiliated with 60 Communist Fronts. He openly incited violence under the banner of "non-violence". King led a bizarre sex life which included acts of shocking perversion... a cowardly, spineless Congress voted to make King's birthday a national holiday. This is the outrage of the century! Until now we had holidays honoring Jesus Christ, Christopher Columbus and George Washington. We must not allow Marxist liberals to elevate King to their level. The King holiday must be repealed!" - Writing by Dr. Ed Fields,. specifically cited in Wooten's book Breaking The Curse Off Black America (page 81), as posted on the www.christianparty.net website, under the title "ABOLISH THE KING HOLIDAY"
[below: quote from editorial introduction to writings attacking Martin Luther King, Jr., on web page linked to on page 81 of Wooten's book]
"None of the following articles make the obvious connection between the jewish control of the American "mainstream media" and an intentional effort to denigrate Martin Luther by promoting a black criminal with the phony name of "Martin Luther King" " - editorial introduction to writings on web page (posted at www.christianparty.net) referenced by Willie Wooten, on page 81 of Breaking the Curse Off Black America
[below: endorsement of Willie Wooten's book Breaking the Curse Off Black America, from Alice Patterson]
"One of the most powerful books I've ever read was penned recently by my friend, Apostle Willie Wooten from New Orleans, LA. It's called, Breaking the Curse Off Black America. God has given Apostle Wooten divine revelation... Apostle Wooten lays a Biblical foundation as he defines a curse then matches statistics to each characteristic. God showed him when the curse came in and why and how to break it... I encourage you to order the book from his church's website and pass it on to others who need to read this very important revelation. You can order his book at www.gideonchristianfellowship.org or by calling his church at (504) 947-4857. " - Endorsement of Wooten's book, by Alice Patterson, in August 2, 2005 post advertising a Detroit pastors event with C.L. Jackson and David Barton, titled "Breaking The Curse Off Black America".
[below: endorsements of Alice Patterson and her book Bridging The Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation, by Willie Wooten]
"RACE RELATIONS AND HIDDEN BLACK HISTORY are brought to light in this book by my good friend, Alice Patterson. She presents a thorough, incisive, serious, and compelling story about how God dealt with her concerning racism, repentance, and reconciliation. Alice's heartfelt story reveals the principles she learned, the evil structures she discovered, and God-given strategies to dismantle the structures." - Willie F. Wooten, Author of Breaking The Curse Off Black America, from the back cover of Alice Patterson's book Bridging The Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation [2010, Transformational Publications, a division of Harvest Evangelism, Inc.]
"In this book, my good friend, Alice Patterson, the granddaughter of a deceased Ku Klux Klan member, presents a thorough, incisive, serious, and compelling story about how God dealt with her concerning racism. Alice tells the heartfelt story of the principles she learned, the evil structures she discovered, and reveals the God-given strategies to dismantle the structures. This book touches on race relations, politics, hidden Black history, and most of all, repentance and reconciliation. A wealth of information can be learned from this rich and interesting study." - Willie F. Wooten endorsement of Alice Patterson's Bridging The Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation, as posted on Patterson's Justice at The Gate ministry website
Willie Wooten is not a peripheral figure in Alice Patterson's ethnic outreach program. Until a few weeks ago, Alice Patterson's Justice At The Gates ministry website was selling CDs and DVDs with footage from a massive March 12-13, 2007 "African American Pastors' and Leaders' VIP Summit" event in Austin, TX attended, by some accounts, by hundreds of pastors and headlined, according to the description from Patterson's website, by Patterson, Wooten, former Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Governor Rick Perry, Dr. James Leininger, and others.
Rick Perry's official Texas Governor's website features a speech Perry gave at the 2007 Austin rally. As described on Patterson's website, Wooten and Patterson were the third and fourth speakers at the event:
"Apostle Willie Wooten recounted how God called a small church in New Orleans to impact the Louisiana Legislature. Alice Patterson shared about her family history with the Ku Klux Klan, repented and asked God to heal hearts and break bondages. Every speaker delivered a fresh word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. From the opening prayers to the worship to information about policy and political issues, God's blessing was upon the entire meeting"
Currently under heavy attack for allegedly racist ties, presidential hopeful Rick Perry can point to his aggressive promotion of African-Americans to Texas government, his friendship with a least one significant civil rights leader (C.L. Jackson), and his close association with the ethnic and racial outreach effort led by Alice Patterson, former Texas state GOP chair Susan Weddington, C.L. Jackson, and David Barton--built around theatrical events featuring Alice Patterson's emotional public repentance for her grandfather's participation in the Ku Klux Klan.
While some media outlets have tried to depict her personal history as a stigma for Rick Perry, Alice Patterson's repentance for racism resonates both with secular American culture and with a deep evangelical tradition of repentance and redemption that resonates across racial, ethnic, and cultural lines.
In mythic America, citizens can always pick up the pieces, and start anew; in evangelical culture, even the most depraved of sinners, who sincerely repent, are forgiven and redeemed. The worse the sin, the greater the triumphal redemption.
Patterson's outreach events to African American pastors, not only in Texas but reaching at least as far afield as Detroit, seem so far to have proven successful. But these events are designed around evangelizing techniques, developed by leaders in C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation, commonly referred to under the title "Identificational Repentance and Reconciliation", that drag a host of divisive and offensive theological concepts in tow, including the idea that entire "people groups", including ethnic and racial groups, can (and usually do) carry collective "generational curses" incurred by alleged ancestral misdeeds.
For example, following Rick Perry's The Response prayer event, leading Wagner prophet and ICA apostle Cindy Jacobs claimed that the event had lifted an ancient, ancestral curse over parts of Texas incurred because of Native American cannibalism and violence (video of Jacobs, making claim.)
One of the major professional bodies in Peter Wagner's NAR is the International Coalition of Apostles, which Wagner headed from its 2001 launch into the year 2010. While Wagner's European-American ICA apostles seldom seem to delve into the vilification of racial and ethnic groups, non-white ICA apostles can be found venturing astonishing attacks, including ICA apostle Kim Daniels' suggestion, made on page 98 of Daniels' 2002 book From A Mess To A Miracle (2002, Creation House Press, a part of Strang Communications Company) that Africans are unusually prone to sex with demons (see here, for quote.)
In a related vein, Barbara Robinson Smith, who serves under the "apostolic covering" of ICA apostles Jacquie Tyre and Venessa Battle, claims, in her book Breaking Racism at The Root (2007, Xulon Press), that the continent of Africa is collectively cursed because of, as described in the Bible, the Egyptian pharaoh's enslavement of the ancient Israelites.