DMX never shied away from preaching the gospel while he was alive. At a certain point, he even expressed his desire to become a pastor, saying that it was “definitely the final destination” for him.
Four years after his death, DMX, born Earl Simmons, will be ordained as a minister at a historic church with ties to the Underground Railroad.
Per Complex, the ceremony will take place at the Foster Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church on Saturday, January 10. The church, which was founded in 1860 and is one of the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Zion congregations in Westchester County, was previously an Underground Railroad station.
“Earl Simmons wrestled with God in the public square, turning his pain into a ministry of raw truth,” Bishop Dr. Osiris Imhotep, founder of the Gospel Cultural Center, said. “This ordination recognizes the divine calling he fulfilled every time he spoke a prayer into a microphone.”
DMX passed away on April 9, 2021, after a drug overdose. In his music, DMX was very open about the traumas he experienced during childhood and his unabated drug addiction struggles. In 2020, the Lord Give Me a Sign rapper also opened up about unwillingly smoking crack when he was 14 years old after his former mentor passed it to him without disclosing what he had laced it with.
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As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, the Underground Railroad was a large movement in North America consisting of several individuals who worked together to aid enslaved men and women in their escape from their captors. The freedom network began in the 1830s; there were homes, schoolhouses, churches and businesses which became known as “stations” along the route toward the north.
These stations provided temporary shelter for fugitive slaves before they continued the rest of their journey. People like Harriet Tubman who helped enslaved Africans move from one station to the other were called “conductors” while those operating the stations became known as “station masters”.
The Underground Railroad extended to Canada in 1834 after the latter had outlawed slavery. By the end of 1850, the network had helped over 10,000 slaves escape to freedom.
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