The Manson Family developed into a doomsday cult when Manson became fixated on the idea of an imminent apocalyptic race war between America's Black population and the larger White population. A white supremacist, Manson told some of the Manson Family that Black people in America would rise up and kill all white people except for Manson and his "Family", but that they were not intelligent enough to survive on their own; they would need a white man to lead them, and so they would serve Manson as their "master". According to Vincent Bugliosi, in late 1968, Manson adopted the term "Helter Skelter", taken from a song on the Beatles' recently released White Album, to refer to this upcoming war.
