Dorsey, the father of gospel music, who became her mentor. She began touring churches in Chicago and surrounding areas with the Johnson Gospel Singers, and in 1929 met the Thomas A. In 1927 16-year-old Mahalia moved to Chicago and caused an immediate sensation when she sang “Hand Me Down My Silver Trumpet, Gabriel” in church and was invited to join the Greatr Salem Baptist Church Choir. Mahalia's biggest joy as a child was singing in church, and she began doing so regularly at Mount Mariah Baptist Church, where she was baptized by the Rev. Jackson died when Mahalia was five years old, leaving her and her brother to be raised by her aunt, Mahala Clark-Paul, known as “Aunt Duke,” a demanding woman who would beat young Halie, as Mahalia was known, if she didn’t clean the house thoroughly enough that no dust would rub off onto Aunt Duke’s white gloves. Jackson, Sr., was a stevedore and a barber who later became a Baptist minister. Her mother, Charity Clark, worked as a maid and a laundress her father, John A. One hundred years ago this month, on October 26, 1911, Mahalia Jackson was born in the Black Pearl section of the Carrrolton neighborhood in New Orleans. Just Mahalia, Baby! Celebrating the 100th birthday of gospel’s greatest singer Mahalia Jackson, May 17, 1957, at the Prayer Pilgrimage of Freedom, Washington, D.C.
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