Mose Hursey

Mose Hursey believed he was about 82 when he was interviewed at his daughter's home at 1120 Tenth Street in Dallas. He was born in Louisiana to Liza and Charlie, who were enslaved by a man named Morris and later sold to Jim Boling of Red River County, Texas, whose name they then took. Boling did not buy Mose's older brother and sister, leaving Mose the eldest child with his parents. The Bolings held about sixty people. His mother was a deeply religious woman, and Uncle Billy preached at Sunday meetings held in the cabins, where people clapped, shouted and walked the floor in the spirit. As a boy he saw wagons full of people and livestock passing and camping in the woods, and heard there was a war, which frightened him out of his wits.

When slavery broke up, the family left through the front carriage gate, and Boling called Mose over and gave him a cup of sweet coffee. His father put him to breaking ground and chopping wood, and times were hard. After his father died, his mother moved with Mose and his siblings Nancy, Margina, Jessie and George to a place outside Sherman, where she took in washing and ironing.

Mose married, raised a family, farmed and preached. About thirty years before the interview, he said, God began making a prophet of him, and he called himself Head Prophet to the World. He fasted three days a week and described visions, including one in August 1937 of a great war in the east with miles of marching men, trenches and big guns, and he said God told him to warn people to be prepared.