C. L. Franklin: Civil Rights to Branham's Stolen Sermon

Rev. C. L. Franklin’s famous sermon “The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest,” rooted in the African American Baptist tradition and popularized through recordings in the 1950s, became a defining message of spiritual maturity and struggle long before William Branham reused its title and imagery. Branham’s later adaptation not only ignored its historical and cultural origins but also built upon a demonstrably incorrect reading of Leviticus, turning the eagle metaphor into a central pillar of his cult theology.

Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, the father of singer Aretha Franklin, was an American Baptist minister and civil rights activist. In 1963, Franklin organized the "Detroit Walk to Freedom," the largest civil rights demonstration in United States history at the time.[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. first delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech during Franklin's Detroit march.[2] The demonstration helped set the stage for the August 1963 March on Washington, D.C.,[3] the largest civil rights protest in United States history, where King later delivered his speech before an estimated 250,000 people gathered around the Lincoln Memorial.[4]

Franklin's 1953 sermon recording, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest," achieved widespread popularity. Franklin had first preached the sermon in 1942,[5] though it was not original to him. The earliest known version of the sermon dates to 1846, when it was delivered by Rev. Andrew Marshall to the First African Church in Savannah, Georgia.[6]

"The Eagle Stirrith Her Nest" is arguably the most demanding sermon in the African American Baptist tradition. To deliver it required a maturity of thought and faith, coupled with a superior musical delivery, so much so that most preachers who did attempt it waited until they were well advanced in their ministry. C. L. Franklin first delivered the sermon at age 26.[7]

William Branham later appropriated both the title and central imagery of the sermon, releasing a message with the same name in July 1957[8] — four years after Franklin's widely circulated recording.[9] Branham referred to it as "my little sermon," presenting it as his own.[10] The sermon became foundational to Branham's cult of personality, as he used the eagle metaphor to claim that his followers alone possessed spiritual discernment. Branham asserted that eagles do not eat carrion[11] and that the Old Testament regarded the eagle as a holy bird, in contrast to the buzzard, which he identified as unclean. Former members are often surprised to discover that this claim directly contradicts the biblical text.

Under Mosaic Law, Branham's theology was incorrect. Leviticus 11:13 explicitly lists the eagle among birds considered an abomination, grouping it with the vulture and the buzzard.

And these you shall regard as an abomination among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard[12]

Branham never acknowledged Rev. Franklin when reusing the sermon theme, though he preached multiple variations of it to different audiences between 1957 and 1961. Branham delivered versions of the sermon on the following occasions:

July 5, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois[13]
July 14, 1957, in Jeffersonville, Indiana[14]
March 16, 1958, in Harrisonburg, Virginia[15]
Unknown month in 1958 in the New England area[16]
August 15, 1959, in Chautauqua, Ohio[17]
April 3, 1960, in Tulsa, Oklahoma[18]
August 4, 1960, in Yakima, Washington[19]
January 22, 1961, in Beaumont, Texas[20]