Composer Aims to Set up Gospel Museum and Concert Hall

Margaret Pleasant Douroux, a gospel music composer, hopes to establish a Los Angeles museum and concert hall to celebrate the music that first came out of African-American churches.

"The music ministry is so crucial to the black church. I'm kind of protective of it," Douroux, the daughter and sister of pastors, explains. "I want it to be as special as I think God would want it to be."

Douroux, whose more than 200 songs ("Give Me a Clean Heart," "Trees," "Mercy That Suits") landed her in the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame, has tried since 1983 to establish the Gospel House but has been repeatedly hindered, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Her non-profit Heritage Music Foundation's motto is, "Classical music has Carnegie Hall. Country music has the Grand Ole Opry. Gospel music needs a museum and theatre: the Gospel House."

Such a museum, Douroux told the Times, would showcase the sound that marries blues and jazz with traditional hymns and spirituals as it celebrates God.

After more than two decades, Douroux continues to press for Gospel House. "I'm really, really hoping," she said. "I have to pray that God will lead me to the right spot."

The passionate, hand-clapping gospel music shocked conservatives in the 1920s. But it spread to religious music composed and sung by white Southern Christian artists. More recently, it has absorbed rock and rap.