View source for Marcelino Manuel da Graça

{{Short description|Founder and first bishop of a predominantly African American denomination, 1919}}
{{Infobox person
|name         = Marcelino Manuel da Graça
|image        = Statue of Marcelino Manuel da Graca 4.jpg
|caption      = Statue of Daddy Grace outside his mausoleum in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
|birth_date   = January 25, 1881 or 1884
|birth_place  = [[Brava, Cape Verde|Brava]], [[Portuguese Cape Verde]]
|death_date   = {{death date|1960|01|12}} (aged 76 or 78)
|death_place  = [[Los Angeles, California]], U.S.
|resting_place= Pine Grove Cemetery, [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]], U.S.
|other_names  = Bishop Grace, Sweet Daddy Grace
|known_for    = Founder of the [[United House of Prayer for All People|United House of Prayer For All People of the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith]]
|occupation   = Bishop}}
'''Marcelino Manuel da Graça''' (January 25, 1881 or 1884&mdash;January 12, 1960), better known as '''Charles Manuel "Sweet Daddy" Grace''', or '''Daddy Grace''', was the founder and first [[bishop]] of the predominantly [[African-American]] denomination, the [[United House of Prayer For All People]].<ref name=britannica >{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/615547/United-House-of-Prayer-for-All-People#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=United%20House%20of%20Prayer%20for%20All%20People%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia |title=United House of Prayer for All People|encyclopedia=britannica.com|year=2008|access-date=2008-09-12}}</ref> He was a contemporary of other religious leaders such as [[Father Divine]], [[Noble Drew Ali]], and [[Ernest Holmes]]. Many of his followers claimed miraculous acts of [[faith healing]] while attending services and others saw his ministry as a sign from God of the imminent [[return of Jesus Christ]].
==Origins and family ==
Marcelino Manuel da Graça's parents were Manuel (1837–1926) and Gertrude (1847–1933) da Graça. Marcelino da Graça's had five siblings, consisting of one brother, Benventura, and four sisters: Eugenia, Slyvia, Amalia, and Louise. He was born January 25, in [[Brava, Cape Verde|Brava]] in the [[Cape Verde Islands]], then a Portuguese possession off the west coast of Africa.<ref name=Standard>{{cite web |last1=Folco |first1=Marc |title=Sweet Daddy Grace still a legend in New Bedford, Massachusetts |url=http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20140427/ENTERTAIN/404270306 |website=Southcoast Today |access-date=10 September 2018}}</ref> There is no verifiable information to confirm Grace's exact birth year, but most sources either state 1881 or 1884. The family Marcelino's father Manuel da Graça arrived in America at the port of [[New Bedford, Massachusetts|New Bedford]], [[Massachusetts]] aboard a ship called the ''Freeman'' in May 1902. It is unclear whether Marcelino was aboard the ship in 1902, but ship manifests show that he visited America in 1903, and in 1904 he came as a cabin passenger aboard the schooner called Luiza.
Marcelino Grace married twice. His first wife was Jane "Jennie" Lomba, a Cape Verdean woman also known as Jennie Lombard. They were married in 1909. They had a daughter, Irene, in 1910 and son, Norman in 1912. Norman died in 1947. Whether they officially divorced was disputed. His second wife was named Angelina (Montano) Grace, a woman of Mexican descent, whom he married in 1932. They had a son, Marcelino, in 1935. They divorced in 1937.
In her book ''Daddy Grace'', Marie W. Dallam notes that the entire da Graça family were [[Roman Catholic]]s in their homeland and opened up to different forms of the Christian experience once they immigrated to the United States.
Benventura da Graça would later become a Church of the Nazarene pastor in the U.S. Marcelino, however, was said inside the da Graça family (according to the research done by Dallam) to have always been a "special child". Unlike the conventional ministry of his brother, he went on to establish an independent Christian ministry. After becoming a famous bishop, it was recounted that as a youth he had received a commission to preach directly from God.
==United House of Prayer==
[[File:Marcelino Manuel da Graca Mausoleum Exterior.jpg|left|thumb|Entrance to the Mausoleum of Sweet Daddy Grace]]
After leaving his job as a railway cook, Marcelino, using the anglicized version of his name, Charles Manuel (Emmanuel) Grace, began using the title "Bishop". In 1919, he built the first House of Prayer in a tent in [[West Wareham]], Massachusetts at the cost of $39. He later established branches valued at $1000 in [[Charlotte, North Carolina|Charlotte]], [[North Carolina]] and [[Newark, New Jersey|Newark]], [[New Jersey]].<ref name=Standard /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Jan 23, 1960, page 8 - The New York Age at Newspapers.com |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/41041699/ |access-date=2024-06-14 |website=Newspapers.com |language=en}}</ref> Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Bishop Grace traveled America preaching and establishing the United House of Prayer for All People. The Constitution and By-Laws of The United House of Prayer, promulgated in 1929, stated that the purpose of the organization in pertinent part was "to erect and maintain places of worship and assembly where all people may gather prayer and to worship the Almighty God, irrespective of denomination or creed." He traveled extensively throughout the segregated South in the 1920s and 1930s preaching to integrated congregations years before the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and the religious ecumenical movements which followed.
[[File:11 Logan Circle NW.jpg|thumb|The longtime residence of Grace at 11 Logan Circle, Washington, D.C.]]
===Faith-healing savior===
For Bishop Grace and his followers the miraculous stories as told of the [[Apostles in the New Testament|Apostle]]s in the [[New Testament]] of the [[Bible]] did not end with their deaths. Grace asserted that such miracles were available again, through him.<ref name=Standard /> As "Daddy Grace", the bishop and leader of the United House of Prayer, he was well known and respected by his followers as a [[faith healer]] and miracle worker.
===Style===
Grace was an early prototype of what is now understood in western culture as the "celebrity preacher".<ref name=Dallum>{{cite book |last1=Dallum |first1=Mari |title=Daddy Grace |date=2007}}</ref> Active during the early and mid-20th century, Grace used attention-getting maneuvers such as wearing loudly colored suits with bold, different-colored piping and shiny buttons, along with glitzy, expensive jewelry and long, unpainted fingernails.
===Businesses===
Grace's business acumen was evident in the many properties he acquired, including the Grace Hotel and a $450,000 85-room mansion in Los Angeles, the Manhattan [[The El Dorado|El Dorado]] apartments valued at $15,000,000 in 1953, [[555 Edgecombe Avenue]] in 1947; businesses he owned such as a hatchery in Havana, Cuba and a Brazilian coffee plantation; and products he sold at his churches like Grace Coffee and Grace Cold Cream beauty products.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Jan 13, 1960, page 110 - Newsday (Nassau Edition) at Newspapers.com |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/712014779/ |access-date=2024-06-14 |website=Newspapers.com |language=en}}</ref> He was worth $25 million when he died, though the [[Internal Revenue Service]] sought $4.5 million in back taxes from his estate.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sep 29, 1960, page 4 - Mount Vernon Argus at Newspapers.com |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/894329380/ |access-date=2024-06-14 |website=Newspapers.com |language=en}}</ref>
===Legacy and followers===
The most notable organizational outcome of the 41-year ministry of Bishop Grace in the United States of America is the religious denomination known as the United House of Prayer For All People. It had 3,000,000 members in over 350 houses of prayer and 60 cities in 1960.<ref name=":0" /> Each successive leader/Bishop of the [[United House of Prayer for All People]] continues in the one-man leadership style initiated by Bishop Grace and each successive Bishop is called "Daddy" in turn. This was later shown through his successor Bishop Walter McCullough (1960-1991) who went on to continue Grace’s legacy, for 31 years.
Besides the [[United House of Prayer for All People]], other U.S. denominations also trace their origins to the ministry of Bishop Grace.<ref name=Dallum /> Prominent among them is the [[New York City]]-based "House of the Lord Pentecostal Church on the Mount".
== Death ==
Bishop Grace died Tuesday, January 12, 1960 in Los Angeles following a heart attack Friday and a stroke on Sunday.<ref name=":0" /> His followers were unaware he had been suffering for ten years from a heart condition.<ref name=":1" /> His glass-topped bronze coffin was displayed for viewing in Charlotte, Newport News, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Newark and New Bedford.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jan 23, 1960, page 240 - Daily News at Newspapers.com |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/459076371/ |access-date=2024-06-14 |website=Newspapers.com |language=en}}</ref> He is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
==See also==
*[[United House of Prayer for All People]]
*[[Religion in Black America]]
==References==
<references/>
==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090126080020/http://www.cmstory.org/people/people.asp?id=2 Charles Emanuel "Daddy" Grace]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090322113213/http://blog.library.temple.edu/liblog/archives/2008/03/daddy-grace-and.html Audio interview about Daddy Grace with Marie Dallam]
{{Black church}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graca, Marcelino Manuel da}}
[[Category:1880s births]]
[[Category:1960 deaths]]
[[Category:Clergy of historically African-American Christian denominations]]
[[Category:Cape Verdean emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:People from Brava, Cape Verde]]
[[Category:African-American Christian clergy]]
[[Category:American Pentecostal pastors]]
[[Category:Founders of new religious movements]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American people]]
[[Category:American faith healers]]