Shirley Caesar
Shirley Ann Caesar-Williams, known professionally as Shirley Caesar, is an 81-year-old award-winning gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist with a music career spanning over 70 years. She is known as the “First lady of Gospel”.
Also called the “Queen of Gospel”, Caesar has won 11 Grammy Awards, as well as 15 Dove Awards. She has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the art of recorded music.
In 1969, she launched the Shirley Caesar Outreach Ministries to help serve the needs of the people of Durham, and the organization became a registered nonprofit in 1981, funded in part by Caesar’s performance fees.
Caesar was elected to the Durham City Council in 1987. Caesar became a pastor at the Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church in Durham, where her husband, Bishop Harold Ivory Williams, also served until his passing in 2008.