Wesley A. Swift (September 6, 1913 – October 8, 1970) was a minister from Southern California who was known for his white supremacist views and was the central figure in Christian Identity from the 1940s until his death in 1970. Early life and influences Wesley Albert Swift was born in New Jersey on September 6, 1913, the son of R.C. Swift, a methodist minister who pastored a church on Long Island, New York. Raised as a Methodist, Swift converted to Pentecostalism in the early 1930s. Swift was a student at L.I.F.E. Bible College at the Angelus Temple, Aimee Semple McPherson's Pentecostal Foursquare Church, during the 1930s. Swift later served as a minister at the Angelus Temple during the 1930s and 1940s. Swift's wife, Genevieve, told interviewers that he was introduced to British Israelism by Gerald Burton Winrod, a Nazi and evangelist from Kansas, who was a speaker at Angelus Temple. Swift was a student of Rev. Philip Monson's Kingdom Bible School during the 1930s; Monson taught British Israelism and some of the racial teachings which Swift would later reformulate into Christian Identity theology. Swift was also exposed to Charles Parham's British Israel teachings at the Angelus Temple. During the 1930s and 1940s, Swift became a leader of the local British Israel community, serving as president of the Anglo-Saxon Christian society, leader of the Great Pyramid Club, and leader of the Anglo-Saxon Bible Study Group at Angelus Temple. In the mid-1940s, Swift emerged as the best known advocate of Christian Identity. In a December 1932 Los Angeles Times news story, it was reported that Swift foiled an attempt to kidnap his wife. Swift fired shots at the kidnappers and the family escaped into the Angelus Temple to evade their persuers. Christian Identity and White Supremacy British Israel leader In the 1940s, Swift founded his own church, Anglo-Saxon Christian Congregation, which he renamed the Church of Jesus Christ Christian in 1957. The church's website now states that "Wesley Swift is considered the single most significant figure in the early years of the Christian Identity movement in the United States." Most sources give 1948 as the year in which Swift incorporated his church, but one source reported 1946. Michael Barkun described Swift as the "central figure" in Christian Identity between the 1940s and his 1970 death. Ku Klux Klan In 1946, while living in Lancaster, California, Swift was taken in for questioning by