Chap­ter 13 delves into the life of Rev­erend Doc­tor Lionel Jason David Jones, a noto­ri­ous fig­ure deeply entrenched in racial pol­i­tics and pro­pa­gan­da. Born in 1889 in Haver­hill, Mass­a­chu­setts, Jones grew up in a fam­i­ly of den­tists, but his aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney took a turn when he failed his den­tal stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh. His strug­gles were not mere­ly aca­d­e­m­ic but stemmed from what could now be diag­nosed as para­noia, evi­dent in his bizarre writ­ings that linked den­tal fea­tures with racial the­o­ries. His obses­sion with race even­tu­al­ly led him to craft fran­tic pam­phlets that warned against the influ­ence of Jew­ish and African Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties. These ear­ly writ­ings, which appeared non­sen­si­cal to mod­ern read­ers, laid the foun­da­tion for his rad­i­cal racial ide­olo­gies, cre­at­ing a trou­bling por­trait of a man whose per­son­al inse­cu­ri­ties spi­raled into harm­ful, divi­sive beliefs.

After being expelled from den­tal school, Jones worked as an appren­tice embalmer, which set the stage for a shift in his career. Dur­ing this peri­od, he mar­ried Hat­tie Scharff, the own­er of a funer­al home, and their mar­riage allowed him to tem­porar­i­ly set aside his extreme views on race. Jones was able to find some suc­cess, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the devel­op­ment of embalm­ing prod­ucts, and for a brief time, he lived a rel­a­tive­ly qui­et and sta­ble life. How­ev­er, the death of his wife in 1928 trig­gered a return to his pre­vi­ous agi­ta­tion, and soon after, Jones found­ed The White Chris­t­ian Min­ute­man, a pub­li­ca­tion designed to spread his tox­ic racial ide­olo­gies. This pub­li­ca­tion marked the begin­ning of a more pub­lic and aggres­sive push to influ­ence the mass­es with his views, and it ulti­mate­ly paved the way for his deep­er involve­ment in racial pol­i­tics.

The finan­cial tur­moil fol­low­ing the 1929 stock mar­ket crash led to Jones’s finan­cial ruin, forc­ing him to piv­ot in his career. He moved to Lit­tle Rock, Arkansas, where he took charge of an embalm­ing school, which, over time, shift­ed its focus to a mail-order uni­ver­si­ty that sold pho­ny divin­i­ty degrees. This new ven­ture marked Jones’s rebrand­ing as the Rev­erend Doc­tor, a title that pro­vid­ed him the plat­form to pub­lish a con­tro­ver­sial book. In his book, Jones claimed that tra­di­tion­al depic­tions of Jesus were inac­cu­rate and failed to reflect Jew­ish ances­try, fur­ther embed­ding his racial beliefs into reli­gious dis­course. This pub­li­ca­tion not only spread his con­tro­ver­sial views but also con­tributed to his grow­ing influ­ence in cer­tain cir­cles, allow­ing him to gain fol­low­ers who res­onat­ed with his dis­tort­ed views of his­to­ry and reli­gion. His com­bi­na­tion of reli­gion, race, and pro­pa­gan­da gained trac­tion, cre­at­ing a dan­ger­ous blend of ideas that would have far-reach­ing con­se­quences.

Dur­ing the esca­la­tion of World War II, Jones became an active con­duit for Nazi pro­pa­gan­da. He eager­ly con­tributed to the spread of dis­in­for­ma­tion, even after the Unit­ed States had entered the war. His out­spo­ken sup­port for Nazi ide­ol­o­gy led to his indict­ment for con­spir­ing to under­mine the U.S. gov­ern­ment, and he was sen­tenced to four­teen years in prison. How­ev­er, Jones served only eight years of his sen­tence, and upon his release in 1950, he found him­self finan­cial­ly pros­per­ous again, thanks to the suc­cess of his embalm­ing prod­ucts. His new­found wealth allowed him to re-estab­lish his pub­lic pres­ence, and in 1955, he resumed pub­lish­ing his hate­ful mate­ri­als, solid­i­fy­ing his place as a fix­ture of racial intol­er­ance in post-war Amer­i­ca. Jones’s re-emer­gence as a pub­lic fig­ure high­lights the resilience of dan­ger­ous ide­olo­gies and the dif­fi­cul­ties of erad­i­cat­ing them, even after sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al set­backs.

The chap­ter clos­es with the author’s reflec­tion on why such an exten­sive biog­ra­phy was giv­en to some­one like Jones. This reflec­tion serves as a stark con­trast to the author’s own sense of san­i­ty and knowl­edge, empha­siz­ing the absur­di­ty of the beliefs that Jones espoused and the way they were giv­en promi­nence in cer­tain cir­cles. The author high­lights how Jones’s life, filled with hate and divi­sion, stark­ly con­trasts with the real­i­ty of those who seek uni­ty and progress. By pre­sent­ing Jones’s biog­ra­phy in detail, the nar­ra­tive under­scores the impact of rad­i­cal ide­olo­gies on soci­ety and serves as a cau­tion­ary tale about the dan­gers of such beliefs. The absur­di­ty of Jones’s actions and his con­tin­ued influ­ence after his release from prison high­lights the per­sis­tence of harm­ful ideas and their abil­i­ty to resur­face, even in a world striv­ing for heal­ing. The chap­ter ulti­mate­ly empha­sizes the impor­tance of rec­og­niz­ing and con­fronting such ide­olo­gies to pre­vent them from tak­ing root once again.