From the summer of 1926 until his death in 1959, Charles Manuel Grace made a name for himself as the faith-healing leader of the United House of Prayer for All People (UHOP). Establishing widespread support for his ministry in working-class communities in the American Southeast, he organized the UHOP as an alternative to mainstream churches by blending charismatic religion and secular culture. Grace adapted the “badman” archetype of the blues to inform his ministry, upend traditional notions of Black masculinity, and blur distinctions between the sacred and the profane. The result was a multimillion-dollar religious empire centered around his embodiment of the badman in the pulpit as “Sweet Daddy” Grace.

Xavier Sivels is a doctoral candidate in history at Mississippi State University. His research looks at the intersections of African American history, popular music, and gender/sexuality. His dissertation “Freakish Man: Sexual Blues, Sacred Beliefs, and the Transformation of Black Queer Identity, 1870–1957,” uses Black popular music and religion to trace how Black working-class culture changed from accepting, and even celebrating, queer sexuality in the public sphere to insisting that it remain closeted. Sivels was the 2023 Study the South Research Fellow.

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