Charles Albert Tindley

Rev. Charles A. Tindley, b. July 7, 1851, Berlin, Md., d. July 26, 1933, Philadelphia, Pa.; American Methodist minister and gospel music composer. Born in 1851 to a free mother and a slave father, Tindley spent his childhood among slaves. In his teens he taught himself to read and acquired a fair amount of liberal-arts and theological education, largely through correspondence courses. After having been ordained a Methodist minister, he returned as pastor to a church he had previously served as janitor. Eventually he built the church he headed, in Philadelphia, from some 200 parishioners to a membership of over 12,000 in the 1920s. He wrote some 45 hymns, generally to accompany his own sermons, in almost all cases composing the tunes as well as the words. Tindley died in 1933. His church was renamed Tindley Temple in the late 1920s in honor of his work there, a name it carries to this day.