I looked up toward the pulpit and there she was, Pearl Robinson, singing the lead on “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” Mmmm! She had her eyes squeezed shut and stood still as a rock, just rooted to the music, with a voice that blew the roof entirely off and sent a chill down my neck in that sweltering room. I went back the next Sunday, and the one after that. All the Sundays till she and Opal went back to Detroit for the school year.
