DT: My name is David Todd and Im here on October 8, 1999, in Beaumont, Texas on the steps of the Shining Star Baptist Church and I have the good fortune of visiting with Reverend Alfred Dominic and as well with Reverend Roy Malveaux. And we visited with Reverend Malveaux earlier so I'd like to begin with Reverend Dominic and thank him for joining us today. And ask if we might begin by just him telling us how he was first introduced to environmental issues and problems and ideas.
AD: Well the so far as I'm concerned, I'm a late comer but my daughter who is a Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force, she is the one that got me together with the pollution matter. It, at the time, and I had been working in wastewater and as a manager in the wastewater field. But, lo and behold, one of her colleagues had said, do you know that one of your, that Port Arthur is one of the most polluted city in the country and that just amazed her. And it almost dumbfounded me. So, with that in mind, we were talking about PCB coming from Mexico. And that this was happening here and I just couldn't imagine.
DT: What year was that?
AD: Oh I could could would not be specific but I would say about several years ago, put it in that category. And when she started me on this whole revolution as we may say, that just really confounded me to say that we did not know what was happening in this particular matter so by her telling me, then we got on it immediately and we have been on it ever since. Now this was done by Waste Management and it seems to me, now to to really be concise, people don't care about people, only thing they're concerned with is money and this is the most devastating thing that I have ever seen since I have grown up at this particular time. And hopefully this will change. Now we've got a wonderful and dynamic young man, Reverend Malveaux, who will not be bought, who could not be bought, and will not, at no time, be bought. And with him there, being young as he is, we want him to really propel himself to the point that he will know everything and whatever it is to do by his youth that he will be able to do it. So he's a dynamic person and we will work with him as long as will God will enable us to do so.
DT: Can you tell me more about the PCB issue that your daughter introduced you to?
AD: PCB was coming from Mexico, going to Waste Management. Waste Management was to burn the PCB. We do know that the residue is very harmful to the general public. Of course, they were telling us say, no, don't worry about it. Nothing is wrong. Everything is all right. Were just doing a job. And you don't have to worry about. No one would tell us about it. That's what this is what is so devastating to me. No one tells you what is happening. And so by the burning of this PCB, knowing how devastating it it was and is, this is the thing that really propelled me to get up and say, well you better get off of it and do something about it. So we went to the City Council and we joined hands with later quite a long time later, we joined hands with Reverend Malveaux. Now I don't know of the incident or how it so happened at that time but now to say what happened to the general public, we don't know unless there is a lab connection. Because if people can say at Waste Management what they want to say, well if we don't have it in our library, we don't know exactly what is happening to us. But we do know that many of the people just do not function as they should.
We know that there are people that are suffering from heart disease, there are people that are suffering from the disease, and there are cataracts in the eyes, there are people that are suffering from you name it, they're suffering from it. One young lady we had the privilege of talking to, Reverend Malveaux and I, myself, the two of us, were using the bucket brigade. Lo and behold, this young beautiful lady had just given birth to a child but she had cancer and she was saying to us well, I thank God that my child does not have cancer. I could have cried. But it this is just one isolated case but there are so many people that are being harmed, not only in Port Arthur but, throughout this Golden Triangle area. And if we cannot get together and do what is necessary to do then our living has been invaded. This is what I say. But with the leadership with this young man, Reverend Malveaux, God has blessed us with a dynamic young person and were getting some things done.
DT: Can you describe how you work together with Reverend Malveaux and some other ministers and congregations?
AD: Reverend Malveaux is the only one that I've really worked with. There have been no dissension. We went out there to take the bucket sampling and we did what we were told to do. He then immediately sent it off to the lab and therefore we waited for them to tell us the results of it. It was very damaging but nevertheless, he did it. And so therefore, we have worked together harmoniously. There is nothing that I can say that he wouldn't do to help people, people in general and whoever they may be. This is his dedication and he's a very dedicated young man.
DT: Reverend Malveaux, how did you first meet Reverend Dominic?
RM: There was an environmental seminar being held at the First Sixth Street Baptist Church in Port Arthur and Reverend Dominic was speaking about wastewater and I happened to mention to him that I had some experience in wastewater working for the City of Corpus Christi and we shared some stories. And he asked me several things and we made a connection. And since that day, it seems like we just hit off. You know, that there are some people that you're just going to have a good working relationship with, you're going to just communicate with, its just going to be easy to communicate with them and when everybody else may think that they're very difficult to understand or to handle, they're going to be just one of the persons out of all of the crowd that you're going to be able to understand and they're going to be able to understand you.
As a result, he and I hit it off and the reason why we hit if off because there was some miscommunication. He knew and I knew that that wasn't so. Now refineries or I could use the term, industry instead, they always communicate fictitious information. Having some knowledge of wastewater, I knew that what they were saying at that time, it was incorrect. Reverend Dominic happened to have a degree or certificate in wastewater and when he shared his knowledge with me, my limited knowledge helped me to understand now this man knows what he's talking about. Now that's better. And so we kind of hit it off and we were always meeting at certain seminars until finally we ended up just working together. He is the also the Vice President of the NAACP and so we hit it off pretty well. He shared with me a lot of things that I could use.
He's a collector of newspapers. He collects newspapers and beautiful stories and some stories that I had never even seen showed up in the newspaper, the U.S. Today and the Houston Chronicle, even the old Houston Post and so those are the type of things I got to know him and I got to know him to be a man that really cares about what he's doing. We were in a City Council meeting in Port Arthur I was invited to by Councilmen Linenburg(?), I think his name, Reverend Linenburg, and Reverend Dominic was telling them about how much poison is happening in the west side of Port Arthur and how they're poisoning their children. And so we went to a bucket brigade seminar.
And what the bucket brigade is about is that it takes our sample. Now industry calls this junk science but it's not junk science. So we went and we got certified. We got our license. We became the bucket brigade. Needless to say, that made a lot of people in the neighborhood mad because now we have access to some information that they didn't want us to have. We take, we took some samples when there was a couple of explosions not long ago and then we took some samples when there was nothing in the neighborhood supposed to be going on and then both times, we picked up MTBE.
In a neighborhood right around the school, around the school where the people are mentally challenged and I turned it over to a lab. We have another young man who is a chemist who works with us who identified the chemicals, told us what they do to the body and then I have another several other friends, Dr. Neil Carmen and Ms. Wilma Subaru(?) and other people that network together with me, the environmental network identified the chemicals and all was saying same analysis given every time. They do not have a good relationship with the human body.
Reverend Dominic and I were met with some adversity if you could call it that and we met with officials from the Motiva(?) refinery and conveyed to him that we need to be very careful with our information, that we don't just give it up just because they say we don't do this. And we always ask a question after we have our analysis. So after having met him almost a year or two ago, I've had a good working relationship. We've done some things in Port Arthur that many people thought was impossible to do and you can you know, Margaret Mead, I think her name is, said, "never doubt that a small group of people can change the world because that's the only thing that really does". The Christian is like that. There was a small group of people that met in the upper room, they called them those of the way, and they changed the entire world. I believe that God can use one man at a time if we just are willing to let ourselves be used.
DT: Reverend Dominic, can you talk about how God and faith might have influenced you to become interested and involved?
AD: Yes I can. I say this to you in all earnestness that a human being is worth more than all the money in the world. And to see him or her struggling because of foolishness and somebody just look at money and not think of the human being, this is pathetic. And if you know that there is a God, he tells you concerning your brother that there is neither Jew nor Greek, born a free male nor female but we all one in the sight of Christ Jesus.
If we cannot love one another and care for one another's needs then we are missing the boat. And its seeming, to me, it seems to me that we have done just that. Because it says, whosoever (tape fades out and becomes inaudible), how dwelleth the love of God in you. Little children let us not love in (inaudible) but in deeds and in truth. Everybody thinks in terms of money and that can make something out of you or off of you that they do not care for you in general. And that happens to families (sound goes completely away) to families, that happens to churches, that happens to, you name it, in our community today. Now hopefully God will use us as his tool to bring about change.
DT: Reverend Dominic, many of the problems that you talk about are connections between pollution and money. How can you explain that?
AD: Well here is the explanation. We look at a person, a human being, we know that they may need help. Okay. After we see that they need help then somebody says I'm going to exploit this person. I'm going to use this person for my purpose. In other words, if I can get and make some money out of him or her, this is what I'm going to do. But that person needs to work. Now an example of that, in Port Arthur, we look at the people over there. Here its 30% of the people on the west side, as was stated by the County Court Judge, 30% on the west side that is unemployed.
We see that Port Arthur has a double digit unemployment rate but still they say that Port Arthur is the hub of the economic system. Then someone come back and say, this is a disadvantaged community. And so, you know, this is contrary to one another's to one or the other statement. This is contrary. How can we be the hub then were disadvantaged? And that is merely the statement that someone is making. Why? Because theyre using the people in general. They're not working but we are looking at all the people in the area in a, as the county would like for it to be, they are saying that local is nine counties. Port Arthur, I'm telling them that Port Arthur is local period. Not nine counties because this is not so. And I'm looking at the people that are unemployed. This is an exploitation of people and they have the opportunity to come from under this thing economically. But who wants to let them do so? Theyre being held back. Now that is reason why I say exploitation, somebody's making the money and the people are not working.
DT: What sort of help or support do you get from the government in Port Arthur or in the state?
AD: The government, the federal government, has, to my estimation, done a tremendous job. But were not getting it down to the local people and this is what is so basic. I thought that everything was coming down to the local people but if we continue to have, and you can see it, its in the paper, 13.2%, I think it dropped down to about 12%, 12.2, 3%--if that, you know, the numbers itself will tell you that there is an exploitation when we've got all of the industries that is supposed to be supplying the jobs and everything else and the county is making all of these accusations that they got this, want to build a better entertainment center and all of these particular things, well that may be so. But what you doing with the people.
The enterprise zones. What are you doing with the people? Nobody can tell me today how many people are being hired so that they can work. These people want to work. They don't want to be on no welfare. They don't want to be on this particular thing but as long as they stay out there, it becomes harder for them to become a person that will a citizen that will do a good job and so they just wait, wait, wait. Some of them have been without jobs for about five or six years. Now how can they then turn to. And so with that and that is, to me, specifically, that is exploitation and until we come into the fact to say, well these people, why should you have that inner city that is supposed to be the hub, the economic hub.
DW: There was a scripture that you stated a moment ago that brought up a question but I don't remember the question. Could you back that up?
AD: Whosoever hath this world goods and closes his brothers bowels of compassion. That's his needs. That's his wants. How dwelleth the love of God in you. Little children, let us not love in words and in tongue. See this is what's happening. People are talking, oh my God, this is a beautiful thing. Were doing this and were doing that. And still the people are saying well you doing what? How do I can't even eat. And say whosoever have this world good and closes his brothers bowels of compassion, his needs and wants, how dwelleth the love of God in you.
And everybody's running around here hollering, oh how I love Jesus (singing). Oh how I love Jesus. And, you know, that's a lie. Now I'm not stupid. I know that youre lying when the people are not there and the people don't have this young man is supposed to be up. He's supposed to be going up the Kings highway. Fifty some odd thousand people would be nothing for him to have in a congregation. Why is he tied down to this? Its because somebody don't want him to go forward. But he still haven't given up.
DT: Why do you think people don't have compassion for your community ?
AD: Because, well I would say, David, they don't have compassion due to the fact that he is one that excites the community. He is the one that says well I'm not going to listen to what you're saying. I know that you have done wrong but they won't come out and do what is right for the people so we can eliminate the problem. See we don't want to destroy the companies. That is not so. We want to work with the companies if the companies will work with us. They're lying to the people. They're telling they are not even telling them the truth of what they have in the air. What you don't see can hurt you. And that is the that is the thing that we can do. But this young man knows. He's been through it.
RM: You asked the question, why do you think they don't want to remove the people from the pollution burden? Because there's money to be made by leaving them there. The city gets the federal tax dollars, the refinery gets those tax abatements once again. And the politician knows that he could probably be easily elected in that district. If you had a goose that laid a golden egg, would you kill him? Would you sell him? Or would you try to keep him tied up? And that's the effect of what's going on here. The people are, in fact, the sacrifice for others to live deliciously. And there's no doubt about it that it's being done and the only way to stop it is to stop making it profitable. When slavery became unprofitable, when slavery became not something that sociably unacceptable, then it was easier to break down the barriers when the church got involved.
The church is sitting back watching this happen and they too are saying that perhaps its okay for a certain segment of the population to be sacrificed so that the good of the better majority might be served. Who gave anybody the right to play God? We know that in the future natural resources, because of the population growth, going to have a strain on it. So were going to have to do some things differently. And its always been the weaker serving the poor. Matter of fact, our Constitution was framed in order that the weaker person be protected from those that had more power.
But in the situation that people are living in these sacrifice zones, and this is not just Port Arthur, this is not just Beaumont, this is not just Corpus Christi, this is not just Texas City or Galveston or the Houston ship channel or Kennedy Heights or this is not just Pensacola, Florida or Mossville, Louisiana or Norco, Louisiana or Richmond, California, this is the United States and everywhere you go, there is a predominantly poor, uneducated sometimes, without political influence, without education, without money, people who are being exploited as Reverend Dominic has stated, so that somebody whether it be a politician or a clergy can live deliciously.
The church has a question that its got to answer. What will I give? What does it profit a man to gain the entire world and to lose his soul? What would you give? Southwest refinery, Mobil Refinery, in exchange for your soul? How much money is it going to take? How much does this child cost? The church has got to answer that question because they're sitting back quietly and genocide is happening on American soil. When you look at it, that's all it is. These incidents come so close to human rights violations than what's happening over in Kosovo because we have an intelligent government.
We have a powerful government that's leading the world and yet we have a people every day that is being sacrificed so that a handful of industrial giants might live comfortable and the entire Christian community is setting back. Oh its good to go to the National Baptist Convention or the Southern Baptist Convention and vote on whether women can be preachers but if they don't live long enough to be teenagers, what good is it going to do for you to vote so that they can be preachers. It doesn't matter. God is the one that determines what we are going to be throughout all Creation.
DT: The African American church has been an agent for change in a lot of areas of American rights. Do you think it will come to have a role in environmental justice as well?
RM: Yes it will because of the church, in general, and I must add and its no reflection or indictment on you or your statement but I must add that I don't see a black church, I don't see a white church. I see a church and they are all from different tongues and different and there are many denominations of people came from other denomination, other races, come here and I don't mean to be antagonistic when I say that but that's the problem.
That is just what the problem is and until the church decides that she's going to stop dressing up half white and half black or half Italian and half Jewish, that's what the problem is. On Sunday morning or Saturday, this entire nation is segregated into black church, white church, and until that is solved, the Christian probably is the most hypocrite because we would rather say those black churches have no business being built there because its easy when you tear down the human experience to say, well that's them anyhow. Or that areas full of crime and drugs in the first place.
That's all that's living over there, bunch of prostitutes and drug addicts and its easier to look away when you dehumanize a person. But nonetheless, God sees a person. He doesn't see me or you and our color. He sees you and I in his creation in the blood of Jesus. The church has stopped got to stop communicating one message and living another and that's what's wrong with the entire church. They're sitting back watching a segment of the population be sacrificed for what they're calling economy. I call delicious living. And until the church lives up to its calling, live up to its mission, they're going to do it, they're going to do it through a crisis or they're going to do it voluntarily but they're going to do it because when man don't move, God will send somebody else.
And when that somebody don't move, hell do it supernaturally if he has to. Okay. Now were worried about all of the super all of the natural phenomena that's going on, how it rains and floods and how unnatural is the hurricanes as opposed to years ago? Okay. When God cannot speak to our hearts, he appeals to us through nature. The Bible said God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell them to repent. And he wouldn't go. So he prepared a fish to swallow him up. And see when God can't talk to us from man-to-man, he'll get nature to talk to us and when nature speaks, youll never forget the message.
He caused a worm to eat up the tree that Jonah was sitting on because he got so comfortable he didn't want to communicate the message because he didn't think these people were worthy of being saved. And that's the problem with the church. The church don't think that the people that live in these neighborhoods I don't want them in my neighborhood. If you give them $50,000 they might become my neighbor and I don't want that. I want them to stay right where they are and so the religious community is going to have to live up to their calling.
DT: Reverend Dominic, I'm curious how you see the religious community change over the years. You've ministered for many years. Have you seen any change in the way they've been involved in environmental issues?
AD: Well let's put it this way. I've seen a change. Environmentally I don't know. But now to go back in the 30's when I was a little boy, I remember that there was a rail in the middle of the church and you had a minister who was a priest and he was preaching to us. I never did forget that for some reason. Now today, the rail is not there physically speaking but the rail is still there when we look at it from a point-of-view of mental antagonism.
Because we antagonize one another. We don't want to live with one another. The only thing we can think of is cutting my grass and how much money I got in the bank and so on and so forth and die and leave everything. Well that, you know, it have changed yes. It have changed from what to I say what is? Now all of this that has been said, we still live in a jungle, to me, because we are still groping at something we should've had long time ago. Because there should be no difference. When we came through this part of discrimination, I think that we should have resolved the issue. But the same thing concerning pollution.
The same way we treat one another, that's the way we treat the pollution matter. We just don't care as long as I got my money and let the rest go to Hades. This is what we think. This is the action right now and were it you don't have to walk out and ask nobody, all you go to do is just look at it.
When I said this young man needs a congregation, should have a congregation of over 50,000 people right today, right now, why is it that he is struggling with this one little building when he's got all of the talent, when he's got all of the articulation that is necessary to lead a dynamic young group of people home. Because we will die. I don't care whether we like it or not, we are going to die. And if you, you know, and this is what's so pathetic to me, we know were going to die but yet and still we go off and we, oh I don't want him living near me.
I don't want this it all right to let the companies do this and the companies do that but, yet and still, we live across the bridge and the people that is in harms way cant move out because economically they're not making the money. They're making about 5, $10,000 and you're making about $50 so, what good is it. I got to stay where I am. And the guy will say, well I been here first. And I came here first. Well that's sounding like a kid. A child. And you still have not even crossed over the threshold. So when we look at people per se, when we look at a community, in pollution matters, the same thing applies. People don't care.
DW: When you talk about the community and the lack of caring, what activities have you been able to do have you done social and community actions to attract the attention of the media?
AD: What we have employed is union. Now we did that a long time ago. AFME, American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees representing people per se. That went on until I retired. Now what am I doing right at this present time? Going before the City Council, governmental entity. You can't go to a congressman or a senator unless you have been before your City Council. This is the decorum that is necessary. Now many people don't follow it.
So they don't get the result. But I go before the City Council and if it is like we have at this present time, the LNVA, wants to purchase a new plant that we have. We just built the plant but the LNVA wants to use it. And say well we'll purchase it from you and so they can then start using the building more transmission lines to give water to everybody else. Well why didn't you build your own plant? To me, I don't think its right. And so then if we see that this is happening, then we've got to fight it.
If we think it is wrong, fight it. And that's what Im doing, whether its over at the City Council, whether it is with the NAACP because Im the first Vice President in the Port Arthur area and all of these things are a part of us and on our agenda. So we are doing something about it just as being here, speaking with you, it is doing something about the issue, regardless to what it is. By being here and talking to you, we are doing something that some people don't even want to be heard.
DT: How much of the environmental problem do you think is a racial problem?
AD: Many in many areas I think and most of it is a racial problem because you're in harms way. You're making less of a salary that will help you to compete in the in today's market. Now why do I say that? If you are making $50,000 a month and I'm making $10 and $15,000, how can we compete with one another?
How can I live in a community where you because you see you're making the money and I'm not going to get over there because I cant even buy the house because the bank will not loan me the money because I don't have the finance that is necessary and I'm not making enough money to put me in a condition that I can do this particular thing. So then people know about it. They know as long as they keep you to the point that you don't have the money, you cannot be a viable part in the community. Most of the time we're just there. So people get to the point that they just get disgusted and they don't care anymore. That isn't right but it is being done.
RM: Let me let me take a stab at that because I've noticed something in Corpus Christi that will help you understand why I believe like Reverend Dominic that its a racial thing. In Corpus Christi when the explosion happened, two things, Coastal refinery wanted to try to prove that the environment was safe so they built about fifty bird cages and put them in the area. And they came back three days later and all the birds were dead. And so they hurried up and moved it. So the City of Corpus Christi removed the dog pound and left the people. Now that didn't make much sense until I thought about it.
They thought more about the dogs than they did about the people. Now if I'm not viewed on the human chain to be worth more than a poodle, certainly there must be something in me that gives somebody the impression that I either can't think or can't work or I'm just not worth it. That's the impression I get. Well there's another reason why I believe its racial. When you watch a neighborhood get depleted of all of its resources and the money just passes through the neighborhood and never stops, you have to wonder why all of these beautiful cars just passing by my house and going to the refinery.
And then to make it easier to pass through, they build a bridge so they wont even have to come down the street. They just go right by your neighborhood. And the money just goes out and in and out and in and it never stops. Why wouldn't it be so comfortable for a plant to make sure that all its employees live in close distance? Its very feasible. It's accessible. You don't have any traffic jams. You don't have any pollution source. Matter of fact, you can walk to work and never be late.
You could go home for lunch. If its such a great thing to have all these houses, why don't the CEO have him a nice house, living right across the street where he can watch everybody from his window? That's why I believe that it's racist. When I understand that the Young Lawyers Association helped build new houses in an area that's got sixteen pollution sites because people have to have somewhere to live. But yet you have vacant lots all over the city they can buy but it has to be right there.
Those are indicators, to me, when you have a high unemployment rate in those city, in those particular neighborhoods and all of them start looking alike. Port Arthur looks like Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi looks like Beaumont. Texas City looks like and they have nothing in common but that refinery. Nothing. Refineries and railroad tracks and the fact that they have a high employment unemployment rate. When I go to Louisiana, to Norco or to Mossville, I don't know if I'm in Port Arthur because they all look alike. They all are neighborhoods that are predominantly African American, unemployment rate, high crime.
The police don't even come in the area unless somebody calls and says one of the guys refinery truck got broke in. Woop! They're right there. But don't call them and say hey, I believe somebody trying to break in a house over there. Where is the address? Oh well well try to make it. We got a lot of calls today. That's the indicators, when the politician don't serve the people in that area. Okay, when they pull out a fire station, out of that area, where their people in that area cannot be served with the services. Look across the street and tell me how many sidewalks you see. You go to a predominantly black neighborhood, you won't see any sidewalks. The children walk in the street. You won't see any bus stops. They sit in the street waiting for the bus but they pay taxes. That's how you know.
DT: How do you think these neighborhoods are going to appear? What do you see as the future for your congregations and your community?
RM: I see, in the future, that since we won't respond, God is going to respond and I'm going to let Reverend Dominic tell you what he sees but this is what I see. I see a crisis coming up. And that crisis, God is going to respond because the Christian community will not respond and he's going to allow some things to happen to get our attention and what I see is that industry has gotten so reckless that they're going to cause a catastrophe one day and its going to be too late to say, the TNRCC is not going to be able to cover that up.
It's going to be too late to say we should have done something because we knew it was too close. I believe that God is going to cause that crisis because the people that he has left here, the Christian community who he has left here, has ignored their job, their mission, their ministry, their responsibility and they have not been withstood. God has given man, his man, dominion over everything. That means the trees and everything else is under our dominion and because we have ignored our stewardship, God is going to allow a crisis to happen and they going to have to answer the call. And that's going to happen and it may be right on the horizon or it may not be but it will be happen.
DT: Reverend Dominic, what do you think is on the horizon?
AD: The story was given to you and to all of us sometime ago about Noah and the Ark and when a catastrophe happen, we should not just hold out our hands and say well, this is not going to do this and this is not going to do that. Taiwan is a good example. Mexico is a good example. When you see these things that are happening in different parts of the world, Indonesia, all of these, Timor, all of these things that are happening is an indication, Russia, people blowing up buildings because they just can't live with one another. And don't go over there if you're black because they'll run you out, they'll kill you.
And this is a fact and this is noted in the papers that we do have, that we've done the research in. And so we see that, you know, since we can't live together, there is going to be a catastrophe. I look back at the Indian because my parents, my great-grandmother was a Cherokee Indian and her husband was white and black. He had Black Bulls blood in him and so when I came along, it was Africa. And so it is white, African and Cherokee Indian. But I looked at what was happening to them. As I looked back, I got so humiliated when I looked at the Civilization Channel on TV concerning the exploits of my people in the Indian in that respect.
Every treaty that ever was, it was torn to hell and back, pardon the expression. Every time that they had any problems or whatever, they got nobody to listen to them. They had land and they just kept taking the land from them until they didn't have anything so they sent them to Oklahoma and then they pushed them out of there. You cant keep doing this to people. I remember the saying sometime ago, it said this, one of the Indians said, he said, you know we used to number our people as the trees that we see. He said but it is no more. We're all gone. And only a few remain. So then if this is the catastrophe that is coming, that it came to them, don't you know we are going to get the same. We just can't live on this earth and think that were so good that God is not going to let this happen to us.
And so this is what I see. I see eventually maybe total desolation, I don't know, but Noah and the Ark is a good place to begin. And there will be a remnant but only a few will be saved. And this is because we just don't want to do right. We don't want to do right at all for nobody. We want to think individually of ourselves and damn the rest of the community. And that will not work. So I see the same as Brother Malveaux was saying. Destruction some kind or way because its coming.
You can't live in this world and think that you are somebody that will be spared and even though you're not doing right and even though you're not doing wrong or something of the sort, you better hurry up and prepare for that day because every eventuality is creeping upon us to show us that you will not God will not tolerate it. He's tolerating it right at the present time but it is coming to an end. And then it may not be the end for this young man but it could be the end for you.
It could be the end for me. It could be the end for those two young men. How do we know? And with that in mind, it seems to me to be very foolish the way were living because we think that were going to live forever and were never going to die. And this is a no, no, no. And so this is what I see. Complete destruction. Eventually it is coming. Were looking at destruction of people and we think that it is not going to harm us but it will eventually. So this is what I see.
DT: What sort of message do you want to pass on to those who see this film and may come after us?
RM: To a generation of children that's going to follow me as I'm following Reverend Dominic, my message to them would be, no matter what you do in life, you can do all you can or all you want but at the end of that road you're still going to see God. Doesn't matter if you believe or it doesn't matter if you don't believe. That's not going change God. You still going to be the same. It behoove every man to get in touch with him. Chief Campbell told me a story.
He said by General Custer when they found him he had a bunch of arrows broke off in his ears and they thought it was a tragedy that they would have all those arrows stuck off in his ears and they asked one of the Indians that was a guide said, why did you have, why did they have to put these broken arrows in his ears like that? That was very peace savage. He said, no they put it there because they're trying to tell you the rest of you a message, you're not listening.
You're not listening. He that has an ear, let him hear. That I would tell the next generation. Whatever it is that you have got to do for God, do it and don't let nothing stop you. But I would also tell the generations of those that's passing on a frivolous living in that the plant managers, they have children. They have children that need to be saved. They themselves need to be saved and some of them might even say they are saved and that's something that's going to have to be between them and God.
There are people that believe that the human body is just a mata bump a lump of matter, that it doesn't amount to much. Well when you get on the other side of creation, you'll find out that matter doesn't change. It doesn't disappear. It just changes forms. And so when you get on the eternity side your body is going to be made out of some matter that's fit for eternity but you're going to still feel and taste and smell and remember and wish that you can come back and change it.
So you need to answer the question today, what will I give in exchange for my soul because you're going to have to have another body that's not made out of these things. And so I would say to all of us who may view this film, you need to take God seriously. Believe God and hell establish you, and believe his prophets or his messengers and you'll prosper.
DT: Reverend Dominic, what sort of message would you want to pass on?
AD: I would like to say to the next generation and also to the generation that is here today, remember one particular thing, that it is best to die and say whether that I have gone over on the other side and to say well, if this isn't true then what have you lost? But to die and to go on the other side, and to see that all that you have done, God have taken this under consideration and then he will put you where there is a place that you cannot cross over whether you like it or not.
Lazarus is a picture. And even though the man that was in torment, he said, well Father Abraham just let this man come back over and do this and that. Tell my brothers. He said, no Father Abraham said no, no. He said, they have Moses and the Prophets. He said let them hear them. And even if someone wanted to go he could cross this great gulf because this is so, it's fixed. And so I would tell the people, don't let this disaster fall upon you because it is better to have lived for that which is right and died and say well then I fought a good fight, I finished my course and the time is now at hand.
I know the people don't believe in what we're saying but this is what I would tell the generation that is coming. Listen! Study to show thyself approval unto God as a man that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Because if you do not adhere, you will die. Now if you don't take the Bible as you should, just remember death, all you got to do is look at the obituary column. Everybody will die so why is it that were acting and playing the role of fool.
I cant, I don't like you and that I'm not going to change and the Lord is saying change, you can live a better life and everything else. So I would say to those that are coming, read the Scriptures or you in them you think that you have eternal life but they are they that testify of me. That's concerning Christ. Now either you do what he says do or suffer the consequences. So listen, read and find out, live a good life. I have been married with one woman for fifty-three years. I've got nine kids from fifty years of age on and I thank God for every one of them. I thank God for what I have been through but I now see in my life that love is the only way that we can escape the dreaded pits of hell and that's what I would say to all who hears this particular part of this particular as I may say of this particular movie or projection or whatever.
DT: Thank you Reverend Dominic. Thank you Reverend Malveaux. It was good to spend this time with you.
End of reel 2049 End of interviews with Reverend Dominic and Reverend Malveaux