The True Story of “Voodoo Village”: St. Paul’s Spiritual Holy Temple
For more than sixty years, people searching for “Voodoo Village” have been looking for a place that never existed.
What stands in southwest Memphis is St. Paul’s Spiritual Holy Temple, a Black spiritual church founded in 1946 by Bishop Wash “Doc” Harris, and one of the most remarkable visionary art environments in the American South. The family that built it has never accepted the name. This is their story.
A church and its founder
Wash “Doc” Harris was born on July 20, 1905, in Sardis, Mississippi. He came to Memphis and founded St. Paul’s Spiritual Holy Temple in 1946, and served as its founder and pastor for 49 years, until his death on May 6, 1995. He was a minister, a spiritual healer and a Mason, and he described himself as part Chickasaw and part Cherokee.
By 1961 the temple had a congregation of about sixty members who met every Sunday in satin robes and caps, some traveling from as far as Sardis. It belongs to the tradition of the Black Spiritual churches of the South, joining Christianity, Masonic ritual and healing.
Symbols of God
Beginning in 1957, Doc Harris and his family transformed their ground into an environment of crosses, moons, figures, signs and illuminated display cases — a Nativity, Christ ascending to Heaven, a fifty-foot pathway to Heaven, a Garden of Egypt. In time the grounds held more than two hundred works. Asked in 1961 what they meant, he answered plainly:
“All these things have a meaning. They are symbols of God.”
The temple is recognized by SPACES, the national archive of art environments, and its works have been shown at the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis (The Soul of a City, 2012) and the American Folk Art Museum in New York (2015).
Where the name came from
The harassment began before the name did. In January 1961 a Memphis newspaper reported white teenagers vandalizing the property. That July, the Memphis Press-Scimitar printed the nickname “Voodoo Village” in its pages — and printed the temple’s street address beside it. Doc Harris told the same paper that week that the works were not voodoo. The name stuck anyway. For decades afterward, carloads of visitors came to throw rocks, fire guns and trespass, and the family closed the temple behind a fence.
The temple today
Before his death, Doc Harris placed the temple in the care of his grandson, Washington James “Mook” Harris. His son, Wash Harris Jr., and Mook carried its traditions forward. Mook has been rebuilding works lost to time and vandalism, remaking the wooden originals in welded and painted steel. St. Paul’s remains a private, active place of worship kept by the Harris family.
FLoW Museum of Art & Culture supports the family’s work to preserve and restore the temple, and is developing the Washington James Harris Nature Center on adjoining land, named for the temple’s founder.
Learn more
- SPACES archives — The Saint Paul Spiritual Holy Temple, by Judith McWillie
- Burnaway — Saint Paul Spiritual Holy Temple (2022)
- Judith McWillie — The Saint Paul Spiritual Holy Temple in 1984 (video)
Support the temple’s preservation
Questions
What is Voodoo Village in Memphis?
A nickname printed by a Memphis newspaper in 1961 for St. Paul’s Spiritual Holy Temple, a Black spiritual church founded in 1946. The family has never accepted it.
Is Voodoo Village real?
The church is real. The voodoo is not. Its founder called the works on the grounds symbols of God.
Who built it?
Bishop Wash “Doc” Harris and his family, beginning in 1957, and later his grandson Mook Harris.
Can you visit?
No. It is a private place of worship. Please do not go uninvited.