| Marcelino Manuel da Graca | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 25, 1 |
| Died | January 12, 1960 Los Angeles, California |
| Resting place | Pine Grove Cemetery - New Bedford, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | Cape Verdean |
| Other names | Daddy Grace, Sweet Daddy Grace |
| Occupation | Bishop |
| Known for | Founder of the United House of Prayer For All People of the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith |
Marcelino Manuel da Graça (January 25, 1881 or 1884 - January 12, 1960), better known as Charles Manuel "Sweet Daddy" Grace, was the founder and first bishop of the United House of Prayer For All People.[1] He was born January 25, in Brava in the Cape Verde Islands, then a Portuguese possession off the west coast of Africa. There is no verifiable information to confirm his exact birth year, but most sources either state 1881 or 1884. The family of Manuel da Graca, the father of Marcelino, arrived in America at the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, aboard a ship called the Freeman in May 1902.[2] 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.[2] }After leaving his job as a railway cook, Grace began using the title bishop. In 1919, Daddy Grace, as parishioners knew him, built the first House of Prayer in West Wareham, Massachusetts at the cost of thirty-nine dollars. He later established branches in Charlotte, North Carolina and Newark, New Jersey. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Daddy 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. One of the principles that Daddy Grace taught which provoked controversy was the concept of one man leadership. Grace used the Bible as his reference and taught that God only used one man at a time (e.g. Noah, Moses, and Jesus). One of the many criticisms made against Grace is the following statement which Grace is to have allegedly made in the early 1940s: "Salvation is by Grace only. Grace has given God a vacation, and since He is on vacation, don't worry about Him. If you sin against God, Grace can save you, but if you sin against Grace, God cannot save you." Nonetheless, the "interpretation of this point – that Grace claimed he himself was God – has been almost completely definitive in both academic and popular literature, and only a handful of writers have ever questioned it, usually as an aside." The most extensive research done by Danielle Brune Sigler on this statement shows that Mr. Fauset selectively quoted certain parts of the original message which changed the context." The original statement, spoken by a member and not Grace, shows that the members and Grace, himself, thought that he was not "God himself", but merely an "intermediary" and "the path to salvation."