In I Was Born This Way, Carl Bean , former Motown recording artist, noted AIDS activist, and founder of the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Los Angeles, shares his extraordinary personal Journey from Baltimore foster homes to the stage of the Apollo Theater and beyond.
He lives in Los Angeles with Roberta, his wife of nearly fifty years..
His articles have appeared in The New York Times , Rolling Stone , Essence , People , Art Connoisseur , and elsewhere.
About author(s): David Ritz is a songwriter who has collaborated with stars like Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye, as well as a renowned ghostwriter who has authored more than fifty books for some of the biggest stars in music: Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Perry, Smokey Robinson, Don Rickles, and Willie Nelson, to name a few.
I Was Born This Way is the rare personal history of one of black gospel\'s biggest stars and a frank, powerful, and warmhearted testament to how one man found his calling.
The Unity Fellowship message is grace: God is love, and God is for everyone
God is gay, God is straight, God is black, God is white.
Preaching an all-embracing progressive theology, he is an outspoken practitioner of brotherly love, a dynamic preacher, and a social activist.
And he has courageously devoted his time and energy to spurring black civil rights leaders to address the AIDS health crisis within the African American community--an issue on which they had been silent.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters.
He\'s brought South Central Los Angeles gang members into his church , which now has 25,000 members in twelve cities nationwide; those same Crips and Bloods have shown up at the Gay Pride parades Bean has organized with U.
S.
At the height of his recording career, he worked with Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Miles Davis, and Sammy Davis Jr.
Everett Koop and Elizabeth Taylor and on civil rights issues with Maxine Waters, Julian Bond, and Reverend Joseph Lowery.
He\'s worked on AIDS issues with C.
Whether making records, educating the black community about HIV and AIDS, or preaching to his growing congregation, Archbishop Bean has never wanted to minister to just one group.
The #1 song, recorded with the Sweet Inspirations, was the first gay liberation dance club hit.
When Berry Gordy signed him to record I Was Born This Way, it was a first: the biggest black-owned record company broadcasting a statement on gender identity.
As a singer, first with the Gospel Alex Bradford Singers and later as a Motown recording artist, Bean was a sensation.
He left his foster home in Baltimore at seventeen and took the bus to New York City, where he quickly found the rich culture of the Harlem churches.
He\'s never been stopped by his race or orientation, never fit or stayed in the boxes people have wanted to put him in.
CARL Bean has been crossing boundaries all his life and helping others do the same.
In I Was Born This Way, Carl Bean , former Motown recording artist, noted AIDS activist, and founder of the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Los Angeles, shares his extraordinary personal Journey from Baltimore foster homes to the stage of the Apollo Theater and beyond
