Neuman Britton, and the prominent KKK leader Connie Lynch. Swift and his fellow white supremacists began to promote the doctrine even more heavily during the desegregation period of the 1950s and 1960s. According to Swift, the descendants of the serpent were "in violation of Divine law when they started to mutate species and mix races." The serpent seed teaching was used to justify racial segregation and the prohibition of interracial marriage. It was also during the desegregation period when William Branham (1909–1965) and Arnold Murray (1929–2014) first began to promote their versions of the serpent seed doctrine. Branham was the most successful promoter of the serpent seed doctrine, and his version of it was subsequently accepted by millions of his followers. During the desegregation era, a militant form of the doctrine was espoused, especially by Christian Identity groups, because its millennial teachings state that the pure race will wage a final battle with the evil descendants of the serpent in order to destroy them. Butler continued to promote the serpent seed doctrine throughout his life, and it continued to be prominently featured at annual Aryan Nations World Congress meetings into the 1980s and 1990s. Butler's teachings on the subject influenced the Christian Defense League, the American Nazi Party, the Christian Vanguard, David Duke and modern KKK organizations. Modern adherents William Branham William M. Branham (1909–1965), a prominent American Pentecostal minister in the 1940s and 1950s who had links to the KKK, also promoted the serpent seed doctrine. Branham taught the belief that the serpent had sexual intercourse with Eve and their offspring was Cain. Branham also taught the belief that Cain's modern descendants were masquerading as educated people and scientists, along with the belief that Cain's descendants were "a big religious bunch of illegitimate bastard children" who comprised the majority of society's criminals. He believed that the serpent was the missing link between the chimpanzee and man, and he also speculated that the serpent was possibly a human-like giant. Branham believed that the serpent was transformed into a reptile after it was cursed by God. According to Steven Hassan, "Branham’s sermons lay the foundation to believe that black people are the inferior race." Branham used the term "hybrid" to describe anything he believed to be tainted by the serpent. Branham accused Eve of producing a "hybrid" race, and he provided a way to trace the hybrid line of the Serpent's