Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer

2 The Usual Miracles

The Usual Miracles Daddy Grace’s first major southern evangelizing tour took place in the spring and summer of 1926. Though the House of Prayer eventually grew into a large institution that appealed to many people, when it was first beginning Grace himself was the main attraction for those who visited his church. Through the 1920s and into the early 1930s, in order to gain a market share he had to be directly involved in the start-up process in every new town. Grace’s pattern was to make a well-publicized arrival that generated widespread interest in his meetings , welcome all those who attended, dazzle them in services, and then leave town before people had a chance to tire of him. Understanding the importance of promotion, he often traveled in a car plastered with advertisements about his message, and when possible he sent a scouting group of assistants ahead of him to announce his impending arrival. One elder remembered driving around a town calling out over a loudspeaker , “Daddy Grace is in town. Come one and all, and listen to the man of God.”1 Another elder, a former church band member, said that they used to play music on street corners to attract attention and then invited listeners to attend services. Assistants passed out handbills advertising Grace’s attributes and occasionally placed ads in the newspapers . Once in town, Grace stayed for two or three weeks holding frequent services in a temporary meeting space. He invited local reporters to the meetings, and if that failed, he paid for newspaper advertisements that were designed to look like articles. Sometimes he used other dramatic attention-getters to assist in drawing crowds, such as guests like Nora “the midget evangelist.”2 One story about Grace’s methods comes from the 1960s legal testimony of trumpet player Enoch Walker.3 The motives for Walker’s testimony were entirely suspect, as was the important role he claimed to have played in House of Prayer history; nonetheless he did seem to have knowledge of inner workings of the House of Prayer. Walker claimed to 2 46 have been a member of the church’s three-piece traveling band starting in the early 1930s. As he claimed in writing, “Some of our duties were to enter a town before Daddy Grace and play on the streets, alleys and corners, advertise when Daddy Grace would be in town and that our band would play the music for every service.”4 Of particular interest is his testimony that it was the band members who often took responsibility for renting or purchasing necessities for services, such as a meeting space, benches for seating, and pans to collect the offering. Then, members from other cities would visit and attend the services so that Grace was guaranteed a lively crowd. If Walker’s testimony is to be believed, it appears that Grace managed to detach himself from logistical concerns very early on, and that people other than Grace had a vested interest in the success of each tent meeting. According to Walker, the band members were willing to take on so many responsibilities because they were treated with respect and admiration by the crowds. Music was at the heart of why new visitors came; not only did it draw people into the services, but the music “captured their minds” and held them there. Walker claimed, “The people came to hear the band as much as they came to hear [Grace] talk, or even more.”5 Though Walker may not have been speaking from his own experience, it is likely that his emphasis on music as an important attraction for newcomers is accurate. Savannah Grace launched his first southern tour in the spring of 1926. Two months before his visit to Charlotte, where he formally founded the House of Prayer, he began his first series of tent meetings in Savannah, Georgia. Rather than setting up camp in Yamacraw, the most populous Black neighborhood in Savannah, Grace sought to create his own nichemarket in the more prestigious neighborhood of Brownville.6 Targeting a newspaper-reading audience, Grace ran an advertisement in the Savannah Tribune for two weeks prior to the start of his meetings. The ad featured a large photograph of Grace, who was draped in fabric, and the text announced that he would be arriving from Jerusalem to preach “that Jesus is not dead but he is risen as he said and lives forevermore .”7 In addition to promoting Grace as...