Give me a clean heart

Give me a clean heart. Margaret Pleasant Douroux* (1941- ). This was Douroux's first song, written in 1970. It caught on after Thurston G. Frazier (1930-1974), founder of the ‘Voices of Hope' choir, who was Douroux's mentor and predecessor at the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, introduced it at a national gospel convention (Gordon, 2006).  Douroux composed the song when encouraged by her grandmother to pray for the people of Mount Mariah Baptist Church, where her father Earl Pleasant was the pastor. She harbored negative feelings toward the congregation because of the callousness that her parents and family had experienced. As a response, her grandmother urged her to...