Speaker 1: First time I heard his name whispered in my family,
Speaker 1: I was around nine. When I was eleven, I first
Speaker 1: heard the shout music coming from down the block. At thirteen,
Speaker 1: I first tasted the church's legendary food. At nineteen, I
Speaker 1: first saw a photo of Daddy Grace standing in front
Speaker 1: of his packard in an elegant white suit, with attendants
Speaker 1: by his side.
Speaker 2: It felt like I knew.
Speaker 1: Him and that he knew me.
Speaker 3: All preoper resim say man, Hey, man ay man, all
Speaker 3: broad children after bad Hands.
Speaker 1: This is a story of a man who's fascinated me.
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to say haunted me for most of my life.
Speaker 1: His name was sweet Daddy Grace, and that's a name
Speaker 1: you don't forget. They say he sold plots into heaven.
Speaker 1: They say he wore suits made of one hundred dollar bills.
Speaker 1: They say he was God himself. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of legends around Daddy Grace, but let me tell you
Speaker 1: some facts. Daddy Grace was born Marcellino Manuel de Grasa
Speaker 1: in the early eighteen eighties on the island of Bravakabuvid,
Speaker 1: West Africa, which at the time was a Portuguese colony.
Speaker 1: He arrived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, at the turn of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, along with the wave of Cape Verdian
Speaker 1: migrants who crossed the Atlantic Ocean on whaling ships headed
Speaker 1: for the Americas.
Speaker 4: As the Cape Verdian immigrants were fleeing this land of hunger,
Speaker 4: they saw opportunity to make their way to maybe improve
Speaker 4: their lives. Daddy Grace had seven dollars in his pocket
Speaker 4: when he immigrated.
Speaker 1: After he arrived, he began calling himself Charles Manuel Grace,
Speaker 1: not unusual for an immigrant in America, americanizing your name
Speaker 1: or having it americanized for you. Within a couple of
Speaker 1: decades after arriving in the United States, he was going
Speaker 1: by more names, Bishop Grace, Daddy Grace, or Sweet Daddy Grace.
Speaker 1: And that last name was given to him by his followers. Yes, followers,
Speaker 1: the man had thousands of them, some say as many
Speaker 1: as three million. Because in nineteen nineteen, Bishop Grace founded
Speaker 1: a church, the United House of Prayer for All People.
Speaker 1: He built the first one in West Wareham, Massachusetts, for
Speaker 1: under forty dollars. From there, he took his evangelical mission
Speaker 1: on the road, venturing below the Mason Dixon line and beyond,
Speaker 1: setting up tent meetings and baptizing people in oceans and rivers,
Speaker 1: and defiantly preaching to captivated and non segregated audiences. He
Speaker 1: was colorful, opulent, and unapologetic, and his personal style influenced
Speaker 1: black cultural and spiritual leaders, including James Brown. He was
Speaker 1: a visionary who built a fortune as a black man
Speaker 1: during Jim Crow during the Depression.
Speaker 5: He bought huge complex in Manhattan that didn't rent the Negroes.
Speaker 5: He had a coffee farm in Brazil and egg farm
Speaker 5: and Cuba.
Speaker 1: He was also controversial. He was often in the press
Speaker 1: for one scandal or another, illegitimate children tax fraud, and
Speaker 1: he narrowly avoided serving a year in prison for allegedly
Speaker 1: transporting a woman across state lines for quote immoral purposes.
Speaker 1: By the time he passed in nineteen sixty, his net
Speaker 1: worth was estimated to be as much as twenty five
Speaker 1: million dollars, which is two hundred and fifty million dollars today.
Speaker 1: His body traveled by train from California to Massachusetts, and
Speaker 1: it was more like a final tour than a professional
Speaker 1: making several stops along the way, attracting thousands of mourners
Speaker 1: and gawgers. But today, outside of his church, which is
Speaker 1: still around, not very many people seem to know about him,
Speaker 1: or at least talk about him. Why is that? Why
Speaker 1: would a man who was said to have raised his
Speaker 1: own sister from the dead, who had obituaries in Ebony
Speaker 1: and the New York Times, whose buildings house thousands of people,
Speaker 1: who started out with so little and ended with so much,
Speaker 1: why do so few people today remember that very memorable name.
Speaker 6: He Race sort of wiped out, And I wonder if
Speaker 6: this was done intentionally. That's a way of silencing and
Speaker 6: making sure that someone's legacy is not carried on.
Speaker 1: And there's one more piece of the puzzle, a big
Speaker 1: one for me. My grandmother is a Grace, a Cape
Speaker 1: Verdean Grace. Her family is also from the same island
Speaker 1: of Brava. I grew up overhearing my cousins say that
Speaker 1: we were related to Daddy Grace. But here's where things
Speaker 1: get murky. Every time I asked the elder members of
Speaker 1: my family, they denied it, often vehemently. The more I
Speaker 1: learned about Bishop Grace and all of his exceptional accomplishments,
Speaker 1: the more bewildered I was that this man who I
Speaker 1: shared roots with had been completely left out of the
Speaker 1: history books that I grew up reading. There are no
Speaker 1: public plaques or monuments to him in his native Caboved
Speaker 1: nor in his home of New Bedford, Massachusetts, except for
Speaker 1: the one that he paid for himself. How could a
Speaker 1: man who was beloved by so many, who fed people
Speaker 1: food for their souls and their bellies, also be so
Speaker 1: despised that people didn't even want to admit that they
Speaker 1: were related to him? And what about the air of
Speaker 1: mystery that Daddy Grace seemed to cultivate around himself.
Speaker 2: Why was he hiding something?
Speaker 1: What was behind my relative's rejection of him? This is
Speaker 1: a story about Sweet Daddy Grace, but for me it's personal.
Speaker 1: I'm Mercy Dupena and from iHeart podcasts and Force a
Speaker 1: media group. This is Sweet Daddy Grace.
Speaker 3: To be happy.
Speaker 1: Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's go
Speaker 1: back a bit. Let me take you to the Cape
Speaker 1: Verdian community of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where I grew up.
Speaker 1: New Bedford is a place where Cape Verdians have made
Speaker 1: their mark, and everyone in the city is proud of that.
Speaker 1: You can eat foods like couscous, kachuopa and jag and
Speaker 1: here creoles spoken everywhere, and you have to make sure
Speaker 1: that you don't do anything regretful in public, because before
Speaker 1: you even reach home, someone are already called your mother.
Speaker 1: Growing updating, you have to ask any potential made of
Speaker 1: all of their last names, just to make sure that
Speaker 1: they're not your cousin. And the parade that happens on
Speaker 1: Independence weekend, it's not your typical Fourth of July affair.
Speaker 1: It's actually the Cape Verdian Independence Day Parade, which is
Speaker 1: celebrated on July fifth. Throughout my upbringing, we learned about
Speaker 1: revolutionaries who called New Bedford their home, people like Frederick
Speaker 1: Douglas and Jabriel Kazan of the Greensboro four.
Speaker 2: Bishop Grace not so much.
Speaker 7: Good morning Marcy as well as good morning, cous This.
Speaker 1: Is my older cousin, Jonathan. He grew up a few
Speaker 1: towns over and we spent a lot of time together
Speaker 1: as children. I lived in the heart of New Bedford's
Speaker 1: Cape Verdian community and its Black Power movement. Around the
Speaker 1: corner from my house was the NAACP and the former
Speaker 1: local headquarters of the Black Panther Party. So prayer was
Speaker 1: part of this nestled in between the two of them
Speaker 1: at the time, though I didn't know it was Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace's church.
Speaker 2: What was your first, like really good memory of that
Speaker 2: when we first moved there, and like hearing the music
Speaker 2: all the time and being like, what is that?
Speaker 1: Man? It was clearly church music. It was definitely gospel.
Speaker 1: It was definitely you know, lots of loud horns.
Speaker 7: They really turned it up over there, they really did.
Speaker 1: But my first actual like interaction with the church was
Speaker 1: going there, but my friends invited me to come and
Speaker 1: eat soul food. They had soul food there on Saturdays,
Speaker 1: fried chicken and fish and collard.
Speaker 2: Greens and mac and cheese and corn.
Speaker 1: I always thought of it as being an African American
Speaker 1: church because they served soul food. Everybody that I encountered
Speaker 1: when I went to the church to eat was not
Speaker 1: Cape Verdian, at least.
Speaker 2: That I knew of.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a until I was about thirteen when I
Speaker 1: overheard my parents and some of their friends who had
Speaker 1: attended services at the United House of Prayer going on
Speaker 1: and on about their experience. That's when I started to
Speaker 1: put it all together. Of Course, I'd eaten there a
Speaker 1: bunch of times, a lot of people did, but I
Speaker 1: had never even heard of anyone actually going to a service.
Speaker 1: It was considered off limits, and I really didn't know
Speaker 1: why they were talking about how long the church services
Speaker 1: were and how everyone cried and shouted Sweet Daddy Grace,
Speaker 1: even though Daddy Grace had died decades ago. As I
Speaker 1: eavesdropped on their conversation, they traded wild stories that they'd
Speaker 1: heard about Bishop Grace, like how.
Speaker 2: He healed people instantly with his hands, and that he
Speaker 2: had a style of.
Speaker 1: A pimp, complete with a cane, long hair, flashy suits,
Speaker 1: and even a fleet of luxury vehicles. They also mentioned
Speaker 1: that he was Cape Verdian.
Speaker 2: That was a complete shock. Daddy Grace is Kate Perdian.
Speaker 2: How did I not know this?
Speaker 1: And then I started thinking about his name and how
Speaker 1: his last name was the same as my grandmother's, and
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute. We're a small community.
Speaker 2: We have to be related.
Speaker 1: And that's when the spirit of Sweet Daddy Grace really
Speaker 1: began to reveal himself to me. You've met my cousin
Speaker 1: Jonathan already, but let me introduce you to another important
Speaker 1: Jonathan in my life.
Speaker 8: Jonathan Peppina, arm Marcy's dad. My parents are Jonathan Depina
Speaker 8: Senior and Lydia Grace Stepina, and both of them are
Speaker 8: in the heavens but very much with us all the time.
Speaker 1: My grandparents belonged to the religiously conservative Evangelical Church of
Speaker 1: the Nazarene. My grandmother, I called her Nana, was born
Speaker 1: Lydia Anna Grace. She was always cooking on the phone,
Speaker 1: talking in Creole, working in the garden, and gathering items
Speaker 1: along with money to send to people back in the
Speaker 1: old country. Both she and my papa were devout Christians,
Speaker 1: and like most Cape Verdians, they were upright folks who
Speaker 1: often spoke about the importance of reputation and honoring your
Speaker 1: family name, which meant that my father's dad, my Papa,
Speaker 1: was not a fan of a flamboyant preacher like Daddy Grace.
Speaker 8: My dad kind of looked at him like the devil
Speaker 8: and I can't remember him. Daddy Grace would be on
Speaker 8: TV and he'd say, look at that guy with that
Speaker 8: money suit.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the money suits. It was his fingernails
Speaker 1: which were over three inches long. It was the loud
Speaker 1: shout music and dancing which seemed like possession, and it
Speaker 1: was the long list of products sold by the United
Speaker 1: House of Prayer that promised to heal you and also
Speaker 1: make your hair grow long and pretty, just like Daddy Grace.
Speaker 8: You know how my thought was when he was critical
Speaker 8: of something, he let you know and he was so
Speaker 8: critical of him, but he never said anything in public
Speaker 8: about him that I know. My dad wasn't that type
Speaker 8: of person anyway to go spouting off his mouth in public.
Speaker 8: But within our family, he made it very clear that
Speaker 8: this guy was not welcome.
Speaker 1: My dad's older sister, my aunt Judy, also remembers her
Speaker 1: father talking about Daddy Grace, especially when he would arrive
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts after his various travels on the road preaching,
Speaker 1: and when he did.
Speaker 2: Come to New Bedford, it was a big tutu. Oh my,
Speaker 2: you know, Daddy Grace is in town. He's coming to town.
Speaker 9: And I remember my father saying, oh yeah, they're laying
Speaker 9: out the red carpet for Daddy Grace. And they said
Speaker 9: that he had little girls dressed in white that would
Speaker 9: be fanning him where as he sat on the porch.
Speaker 2: I can just imagine. I'm like, oh, mamma. My mother
Speaker 2: denied that they were related. Nobody wanted to be because
Speaker 2: the man was out there. He's a cult.
Speaker 1: This is something I've heard before. I once asked my
Speaker 1: great uncle Abel if Daddy Grace was part of the family,
Speaker 1: and he said, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: We have nothing to do with that man.
Speaker 1: There were rumors and even some allegations that might suggest
Speaker 1: that Daddy Grace had less than pure intentions with some
Speaker 1: of his congregants, especially the young women, including my very
Speaker 1: own grandmother. I talked to my cousin Jonathan about this,
Speaker 1: Do you know anything about Daddy Grace trying to get
Speaker 1: Nana to join his congregation and any interaction with our
Speaker 1: great grandfather.
Speaker 2: Our great grandfather was not too happy about that.
Speaker 7: What I was told is that being met our great
Speaker 7: grandfather didn't want her to go.
Speaker 2: That he was really stern, so to speak.
Speaker 7: Almost to the point of being very physical about it.
Speaker 1: Jonathan said he'd heard this story from a couple of people,
Speaker 1: including my uncle Abel, who was my Nana's youngest brother.
Speaker 7: Uncle Abel would say, you know, I had so many
Speaker 7: different saying, I don't want to twist it, but he
Speaker 7: was like that man showed up on the farm thinking
Speaker 7: he could talk to your grandmother. My father would have
Speaker 7: no part of it, and then he would go into
Speaker 7: speaking Creole where he would say showing him the acts
Speaker 7: and saying, you know this is the axe, I'll sharpen
Speaker 7: it on your head.
Speaker 1: The thing was, while Daddy Grace's methods for getting people
Speaker 1: to join his congregation may have been at best un orthodox,
Speaker 1: his church, the United House of Prayer, was in many
Speaker 1: ways pretty similar to other Black Pentecostal churches at the time.
Speaker 1: That meant long sermons, lots of music, and something that
Speaker 1: didn't sit particularly well with my mainly Catholic and Nazarene
Speaker 1: relay latives, speaking in tongues. When someone speaks in tongues,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to show that they're communicating with God in
Speaker 1: God's language, which is only spoken and interpreted by those
Speaker 1: who are anointed. But a lot of Cape Verdians who
Speaker 1: were not members of Daddy Grace's church said that they
Speaker 1: did understand what he was saying.
Speaker 7: One of the stories that I remember them talking about,
Speaker 7: they'd always be like he was up there speaking creole
Speaker 7: and they all thought he was speaking in tongues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard that, actually more than once.
Speaker 1: I have heard that same exact story from several people
Speaker 1: who knows right I mean, we weren't there, so I didn't.
Speaker 2: You were never there there. And you know, a good
Speaker 2: story gets better as kids. Here's what I do know.
Speaker 1: Bishop Grace was a contentious figure. He was called a charlatan,
Speaker 1: a race denier, and a predator. Yet he was beloved
Speaker 1: by hundreds of thousands. He built a massive flock and
Speaker 1: ensured that his legacy would live through his church, and
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties he was said to be the
Speaker 1: richest black preacher in America.
Speaker 2: How did he do it?
Speaker 1: What was his secret? I asked my dad how he
Speaker 1: thought this could have happened? What do you make of
Speaker 1: the massive amount of success and wealth that he was
Speaker 1: able to amass during his life? And you know, to
Speaker 1: be able to be a man who emigrated from a
Speaker 1: country that was so poor and you know, with very
Speaker 1: little resources for him to be able to purchase luxury
Speaker 1: apartment buildings in Manhattan and you know, eighty three room
Speaker 1: mansions and have a fleet of luxury vehicles and attendance.
Speaker 2: What do you make of that?
Speaker 8: Donald Trump, who wots doll trum? He has that power.
Speaker 8: Daddy Grace had that power that he could talk people
Speaker 8: into giving him all the money they had in hopes
Speaker 8: that they were going to heaven or they would be healed.
Speaker 8: He had that ability.
Speaker 1: It's interesting what people correlate with Daddy Grace. For my
Speaker 1: great grandfather, it was his perceived dangerousness. For my dad,
Speaker 1: it was his way with words, his Trumpian charisma. For me,
Speaker 1: it was his audacity. And for doctor Marilyn Halter, who
Speaker 1: is not only my stepmother but also one of the
Speaker 1: pre eminent scholars of Cape Verdie in American history, it's
Speaker 1: how effortlessly he transformed from a poor immigrant into a
Speaker 1: powerful American.
Speaker 4: What struck me about his life story was the extent
Speaker 4: to which he seemed to be constantly reinventing himself. When
Speaker 4: I've thought about his life history, the person who comes
Speaker 4: to mind that seems most akin to is Bob Dylan.
Speaker 4: His persona is very different than his actual history.
Speaker 1: There's virtually nothing about him at all prior to his
Speaker 1: arrival in the United States, which makes him somewhat, you know, mysterious, right, And.
Speaker 4: I think he cultivated that mystery. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: that is very much a part of who Daddy Grace
Speaker 4: became and continued to become, was, you know, creating mystery
Speaker 4: around himself.
Speaker 1: I think some of this mysteriousness is inherent to be
Speaker 1: in Cape Verdian thing about us. We're like chameleons thanks
Speaker 1: to our history. We have so many elements to our culture,
Speaker 1: our language, and our worldview, and due to colonialism, blending
Speaker 1: in has been a mode of survival. Daddy Grace did
Speaker 1: more than survive, though he thrived. He built an empire
Speaker 1: at a scale no Cape Verdian had achieved before or since,
Speaker 1: and became one of the pioneers of what would become
Speaker 1: the modern Black megachurch. That dream of a land in
Speaker 1: which life should be better and richer and fuller for
Speaker 1: every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability
Speaker 1: or achievement. That's historian James Truslow Adams describing the American dream,
Speaker 1: a term he put into the national consciousness in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one. Marlino Manuel de Grasa aka Charles Manuel Grace
Speaker 1: aka Sweet Daddy Grace certainly saw the possibility in those words,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure he also recognized their fallacy. He certainly
Speaker 1: experienced the struggle that people of color had in the
Speaker 1: United States that for most black people, racism could not
Speaker 1: be separated from the American dream.
Speaker 4: The American dream is an ideal that mainly realized historically
Speaker 4: by white man who come from Anglo backgrounds. Right, So
Speaker 4: I think he's just an exception in some ways to
Speaker 4: the American dream in terms of being able to forge
Speaker 4: such a successful outcome in his life as a black
Speaker 4: immigrant or an immigrant of color.
Speaker 1: But I think Daddy Grace is keep Verdian identity allowed
Speaker 1: him to have a different perspective. Cape Verdians were the
Speaker 1: first voluntary African immigrants to come to the US. No
Speaker 1: matter how tough it may have been in America, it
Speaker 1: was still better than being in colonial Capoved where countless
Speaker 1: people died during extreme droughts and famine. Unaided by the
Speaker 1: Portuguese government. Immigration offered hope. Daddy Grace probably felt like
Speaker 1: America had streets paved with gold, and those were exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of streets that he wanted to live on.
Speaker 7: In doing this podcast, is this like kind of really
Speaker 7: curious what your goal is to achieve out of all
Speaker 7: of this?
Speaker 2: Is there like something that you're hoping to find or
Speaker 2: what is.
Speaker 1: It that you're looking to get out of this? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the main reason why I'm doing this is
Speaker 1: because my entire life, like Daddy Grace has been there,
Speaker 1: You've always felt this strong connection to him, and then
Speaker 1: you know, found out.
Speaker 2: That he was right across the street from my high school.
Speaker 1: You know, went to go see the grave and I
Speaker 1: literally heard him saying, like, tell my story, and that
Speaker 1: was like a whoa, Okay, I don't know what this
Speaker 1: is about, but all right. And I know that a
Speaker 1: lot of Cape Verdians were very embarrassed by him. His appearance,
Speaker 1: his style of delivering the word, his religion, the money
Speaker 1: really made people feel very uncomfortable. I think people had
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about whether he was a legitimate
Speaker 1: man of God or not. I really want to highlight
Speaker 1: his story because I think it's an incredible American story.
Speaker 1: I think it's an incredible Cape Verdian American story, and
Speaker 1: I really do want to know are we really connected
Speaker 1: to this man or not?
Speaker 2: Like is there a relation or not.
Speaker 1: In African cultures, the oral tradition is the primary way
Speaker 1: that stories get passed down, and in African spirituality, our
Speaker 1: ancestors service guide throughout our lives on Earth. I've been
Speaker 1: communicating with these guides for as long as I can remember,
Speaker 1: in the form of dreams, intuitions, and visions. Since childhood,
Speaker 1: I've worn a sabichi or conto doju, which is a
Speaker 1: cape Verdian beide that protects you from evil spirits. I've
Speaker 1: always had the understanding that music, dance, and storytelling are
Speaker 1: ways to communicate with a higher power. It's been a
Speaker 1: long time since I encountered his photo and heard Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace say, tell my story, but he never stopped reminding me.
Speaker 1: In my twenties, there was this mansion that I drove
Speaker 1: by every single day. Recently I discovered it once belonged
Speaker 1: to Daddy Grace. Then it was a man who I
Speaker 1: was madly in love with. He had an affair while
Speaker 1: we were together with a woman who just happened to
Speaker 1: impersonate Daddy Grace in a performance piece. It's taken years
Speaker 1: for me to find the courage to make this podcast
Speaker 1: because there are so many layers, so many unknowns, and
Speaker 1: it involves my family and my community. It's sensitive and
Speaker 1: I feel vulnerable telling my story. But I'm ready not
Speaker 1: just to tell the story of one man, but of
Speaker 1: his people, my people. I came from the land beyond
Speaker 1: the sea. Is the saying that Daddy Grace used to
Speaker 1: describe his origins and journey from Cobblevid. It's where the
Speaker 1: boy called Marcellino was from. Where Sweet Daddy Grace is from,
Speaker 1: Where my family is from. That's next time. Sweet Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Force a
Speaker 1: Media Group. This show is hosted by Me Marcy de Pina.
Speaker 1: It's written and produced by Marissa Brown and Me. Our
Speaker 1: story editors are Darryl Stewart, Duncan Riedel, and Zarren Burnett. Editing,
Speaker 1: sound design and theme music by Jonathan Washington. Original music
Speaker 1: by Enrique Silva of Acasia Mayor. Show cover art by
Speaker 1: Viviana Salgado of Studio Creative Group. Fact checking by Austin Thompson.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Marcy Depina and Jason English. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Will Pearson, Nikki Ettore, Ali Perry, Tamika Campbell,
Speaker 1: and Lulu Phillip of iHeartMedia and all of my family
Speaker 1: members who talked to me for this show, my ancestors,
Speaker 1: the United House of Prayer for All People, and the
Speaker 1: countless number of people who shared their memories of Sweet
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace with me. Thanks also to doctor Marie Dollam.
Speaker 1: And doctor Danielle brun Sigler, whose academic work on Sweet
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace has been incredibly helpful. And finally, I want
Speaker 1: to thank Bishop Grace himself for choosing me to tell
Speaker 1: his story. For more information on Bishop Charles M. Grace,
Speaker 1: check out the website Sweet Daddy Grace and follow me
Speaker 1: at Marcy Dpina on all social platforms