Abraham Hamilton III, a conservative black podcast host, claimed on August 19 that leaders of the "Black Lives Matter" movement engage in witchcraft and summon dead spirits. Hamilton used his platform to urge Christians that have sided with and supported BLM to reevaluate the movement. His podcast, The Hamilton Corner, is broadcast by American Family Radio, a socially conservative radio network that focuses on Christian issues in politics and culture.
Hamilton is the Public Policy Analyst for the American Family Association and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
On the August 19 episode, Hamilton began by criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement as a "Marxist, anti-Christ, anti-family, [and] anti-man organization." Hamilton referenced an interview with Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of BLM, where she calls herself a "trained Marxist."
Hamilton described the movement as a "copy and paste of the Bolshevik Revolution ... just applied to an American context." Hamilton argued that BLM as a Marxist organization is attempting to utilize the history of chattel slavery and race divisions in America to foment division in the country.
Throughout the episode, however, Hamilton's main argument was that BLM utilizes religious and spiritual practices, which he described as "witchcraft", to further their goals.
Hamilton read a quote from Cullors detailing her spiritual beliefs: "I'm calling for spirituality to be deeply radical," Cullors said. "We're not just having a social justice movement, this is a spiritual movement."
Hamilton then played a segment of an online conversation from June between Cullors and Dr. Melina Abdullah, a professor of African studies at California State University Los Angeles and the founder of the Los Angeles chapter of BLM.
In the clip, Abdullah says, "We've become very intimate with the spirits that we call on regularly." Abdullah goes on to say that she "laughs a lot with Wakiesha", referring to Wakiesha Wilson, an African-American woman found dead in a Los Angeles jail in 2016.
Based on the conversation between the two notable figures of the BLM movement, Hamilton claimed that the leaders were summoning the dead and using the power of the dead to do their cultural and political work.
According to Hamilton, leaders that seek to summon the spirits of the dead are practicing "the Yoruba religion of Ifa."
"They are summoning dead spirits," he said. "One of the touchstones of this religious practice is ancestral worship. Guess what the Bible calls that folks? Witchcraft."
Cullors and Abdullah spoke directly about summoning spirits through "Say Her Name" chants and leaving offerings for victims of police brutality. Hamilton referenced the "spiritual wickedness" that the Apostle Paul warned about in Ephesians 6:12 to condemn these spiritual practices.
Hamilton ended the podcast by challenging Christians to reconsider BLM due to its inconsistency with Christianity. "How can you reconcile that with what the word of God says?" he asked. "We have got to evaluate everything through the word of God."
