New Museum of Christian Gospel Music honors a diversity of music with a message
toggle caption Jewly Hight/Nashville Public Radio
On a Friday morning in early October, musicians, industry executives, and politicians packed into the open-air café at the brand new Museum of Christian and Gospel Music — the first museum in the U.S. designed to celebrate the breadth of Christian music.
They spilled onto the downtown Nashville sidewalk, mere blocks away from historic churches and country stars' raucous tourist bars. It was a ceremony many years in the making.
There is an institution devoted to Black Gospel in St. Louis, one for white Southern gospel in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and the Gospel Music Association (GMA) has been inducting originators from both those traditions, along with Christian pop pioneers, into its Hall of Fame since 1972.
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But for the entirety of those 50-plus years, the hall's been without a physical location. Past efforts to build one failed.
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