of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement are found in Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy, who both claimed that they had revelations in which they believed that God told them that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Christian Bible; Cherry established the "Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations" in 1886, and Crowdy founded the "Church of God and Saints of Christ" in 1896. Cherry taught that the Talmud was authoritative, that Jesus would return in the year A.D. 2000, and in a "square earth surrounded by three layers of heaven." The playing of the piano and the collection of tithes during Black Hebrew Israelite worship was forbidden by Cherry, who also taught the eastward direction of prayer and "denigrated white Jews as interlopers". The Church of God and Saints of Christ, originating in Kansas, retained elements of a messianic connection to Jesus. Another early key figure was William Christian. The pioneers of the movement were Freemasons, and it was strongly influenced by Masonic traditions. In the late 19th century, Cherry's and Crowdy's followers continued to propagate the claim that they were the biological descendants of the Israelites, and during the following decades, many more Black Hebrew congregations were established; after Frank Cherry's death in 1963, his son Prince Benjamin F. Cherry took over leadership of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. After World War I, for example, Wentworth Arthur Matthew, an emigrant from Saint Kitts, founded another Black Hebrew congregation in Harlem, claiming descent from the ancient Israelites. He called it the "Commandment Keepers of the Living God". Similar groups selected elements of Judaism and adapted them within a structure similar to that of the Black church. Matthew incorporated his congregation in 1930 and moved it to Brooklyn, where he later founded the Israelite Rabbinical Seminary, where Black Hebrew rabbis have been educated and ordained. The group sometimes employs street preaching to promote their ideology. Sidewalk ministers may employ provocation to advance a message that is often antisemitic, racist, and xenophobic. This primarily gained notice in the news through their street preaching that purportedly targeted students of Covington Catholic High School (Kentucky) in January 2019. One student reported the Black Hebrew Israelites called students 'racists', 'bigots', 'white crackers', 'faggots', and 'incest kids', and told an African American student that white classmates would "harvest his organs". Groups During the late 19th and