James David Manning

Biography

Manning was born on February 20, 1947, in Red Springs, North Carolina. He grew up in the town, which was then segregated. He picked cotton and pulled tobacco as a child, and took a bus to New York the day he graduated from high school. He became radicalized in the 1960s and said he was driven by his hatred of white people. As a younger man, Manning burglarized homes, mostly on Long Island. Between 1969 and 1974, he said, he broke into as many as 100 houses, and once threatened an associate with a loaded shotgun. He spent about  3 ¹⁄₂ years in prison in New York and Florida for burglary, robbery, larceny, criminal possession of a weapon, and other charges before his release in 1978. While in prison, he became a devout Christian. Manning has said that his past life of crime and then incarceration helped to shape his wider perspective on life, and that he does not shy away from discussing it.

After beginning study in 1982, Manning graduated from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, where he was awarded a Master of Divinity in 1985. During his graduate studies, Manning went on a religious study tour to Latin America, and later to Africa. In his theological group study tour of Africa in 1985, he visited both Liberia in West Africa, founded by former African-American slaves, and apartheid-era South Africa. He met his future wife on the tour. Manning has said that his visit to Africa had an influence on his views about race, and that his witnessing of black societies other than African-Americans influenced his views on the nature of black people.

Manning claims to hold a Doctor of Philosophy degree from his own ATLAH Theological Seminary, an institution without educational accreditation. According to Manning, he attended the Oxford Round Table in 2004.

Taxation controversies

State authorities claim that Manning owes $1.02 million through unpaid tax, unpaid water bills and general debts. His church, was due for public auction but a temporary stay has been granted. The Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit organization providing transitional homes for homeless LGBT youth reached its target of $200,000 to buy the church as of February 9, 2016.

Ali Forney, who inspired the founding of the organization, was murdered in Harlem in 1997, only 12 blocks from ATLAH. In 2013 Islan Nettles was beaten to death in Harlem only one mile from ATLAH. Could there be a more just outcome to the ATLAH foreclosure than that the young LGBT people most endangered by the hatred and contempt Manning promotes would take over his building?(Carl Siciliano, Ali Forney Center founder)

Manning maintains this sale will not happen unless "men give birth through their anus". Manning said that he and his congregation will barricade themselves inside the church and arm themselves to stop new owners taking possession of it. Manning maintains the whole building should be tax exempt but tax authorities disagree as parts of the building are used for different purposes. A stay was granted pending a full court hearing on June 1. ) Carl Siciliano was pleased his organization had more time for research and to develop a favorable financial package.

While we are excited at the possibility of acquiring the building at auction, we were anxious at needing to rush quickly into this process. The temporary restraining order allows us time to gain more knowledge and strengthen our position. (...) No matter the outcome of the legal hearing, our youth have already won.(Carl Siciliano)

Carl Siciliano notes sufficient money has been raised to acquire housing space for homeless LGBT young people at ATLAH or elsewhere. Sicliano sees it as a victory for the gay community and their allies and believes it shows they are a compassionate society who reject James Manning's hate message. In September 2016, Judge Manuel J. Mendez vacated the foreclosure and sale order, ruling that as ATLAH may be found to be tax exempt, it cannot be forced to be sold until such time that ATLAH is found to actually owe the taxes the city claims it owes.

Criticism of homosexuality

Manning often receives media coverage for his condemnations of homosexuality, which include calling for homosexuals to be stoned to death. He has referred to himself as "the sodomite slayer" and stated, "I do think that anyone who promotes [homosexuality] as a lifestyle and tries to make it a national and international event and create warfare upon everybody else, then the appropriate response would be to stone them back to the Stone Age, or stone them back to hell."

Manning's views on homosexuality include the beliefs that "white homos are going to take the black woman’s man" and that President Obama is going to "use gay people to destroy the black community." He calls for the stoning of gay people and for Harlem to be a "homo-free zone."

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Manning stated, "The homosexual activists are flat-out lying about what Jesus would do regarding the detestable, abominable, diseased practice and act of homosexuality. They have been lying and saying that Jesus would simply love." Manning has stated that Starbucks will be "ground zero for Ebola" in the United States because homosexuals frequent the stores and "a lot of bodily fluids" are exchanged. Manning has also stated that Starbucks puts semen in its coffees, and that millions of people around the world "really think that the taste of semen is quite a flavor."

Criticism of Barack Obama

Manning has expressed contempt for a range of American political leaders, stating that both George W. Bush and his father had anal sex with 100 men and likening Barack Obama to Hitler and one of the two beasts in Revelation. Manning came to public attention during the 2008 presidential election after ATLAH posted several sermons of his on YouTube that were harshly critical of Obama. Among other accusations, he called Obama's mother "white trash" for becoming pregnant by a black man out of wedlock, an issue he discussed during a press conference at the National Press Club on December 8, 2008.

It is common knowledge that African men, coming from the continent of Africa — especially for the first time — do diligently seek out white women to have sexual intercourse with. Generally the most noble of white society choose not to intercourse sexually with these men. So it's usually the trashier ones who make their determinations that they're going to have sex.

Manning defended his sermons in an interview on Fox News, saying that "we also have to talk about his character." The sermons drew the attention of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service objecting to alleged violations of laws granting tax-free status to churches on the condition that they refrain from certain forms of political activity.

Manning has continued his criticisms of Obama since the election, frequently calling him a criminal and "long-legged mack daddy." He produced a video in summer 2009 in which he predicted that there would be a white backlash against Obama, complete with riots, and he attended one of the first "birther" events. In an interview with the Israeli radio station Arutz Sheva, Manning asserted that Obama had chosen to befriend Muslims instead of Jews; he also offered praise of Meir Kahane.

After Bill O'Reilly, a commentator on Fox News, called birther lawyer Orly Taitz a "nut," Manning and Taitz organized a protest outside Fox News headquarters in New York City in November 2009, which drew an estimated 15 to 20 attendees.

In May 2010, Manning staged a show trial of Barack Obama at ATLAH for wire fraud, with Manning acting as prosecutor. Although the treason and sedition charges had been deleted from consideration at the trial, Manning expressed the opinion that Obama should be hanged.

In 2013, Manning accused Obama of having a “love child” and then shooting the mother outside the White House. On August 4, 2014, he prognosticated that Obama and Vladimir Putin would be outed as gay within 100 days.

Following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting, Manning suggested that Obama had cut a deal with terrorists to attack other Western countries.

In early 2016, Manning alleged that President Obama had murdered Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

When Manning's missionary church faced foreclosure in 2016, Manning alleged that President Obama had ordered for the church to be closed.

Public image

Manning's claims and allegations through social media have made him the subject to much scrutiny. He has appeared on Fox News, The Young Turks and a plethora of other social media entities.

Criticism of Ben Carson

In 2015, Manning called presidential candidate Ben Carson a "pathetic nigga" and a "demon", and described all of Carson's supporters as "closeted sodomites, fags, lesbos, [and] buttlickers".

Criticism of black leadership

In his sermons and in video messages posted on his church's website and on YouTube, Manning has denounced the influence of Charles Rangel, Al Sharpton, Cornel West and Jay-Z. He has also had harsh words for black people in general, and black men in particular.

Opposition to gentrification in Harlem

Manning is fiercely opposed to the gentrification of Harlem and calls for its residents to boycott its shops, restaurants, doctors, banks and churches. That action, combined with a general rent strike, would force all property owners out of Harlem, he said, leaving the neighborhood to its rightful inheritors: black people.

Manning calls his plan "No Dew, Nor Rain", after Elijah's warning to Ahab, king of Israel, of a coming drought. "When there's no dew, no rain, there's a drought — there's all kinds of suffering", Manning said. The whole of Harlem, he said, is to be a "drought zone".

Manning said the intent of the boycott was to return Harlem to its pre-gentrification days of 1990, without the crack cocaine, crime, and boarded-up buildings. His hope, he says, is that declining property values will make housing affordable for black people.