This past Easter Sunday, Lou Della Evans-Reid walked across the stage at First Church of Deliverance, where the 89-year-old serves as a music adviser. Though she’s not quite four foot 11, when she leads that choir she transforms into a monumental presence. Dressed in a white robe, she stood underneath an illuminated cross and opened her arms wide like Moses parting the Red Sea, summoning a hundred singers to follow her.

  • Lou Della Evans-Reid and her choir released this live album in 2015.

In Chicago’s gospel scene, she’s a living legend, responsible for inspiring a fleet of musicians, producers, and choir directors across the city, the state, the nation, and even the world. A flock of fans—most of them loyal churchgoers from multigenerational families—often crowds around Evans-Reid after a Sunday service.

Chicago is the birthplace of gospel music, and in the 1950s Fellowship became the epicenter for traveling gospel singers, musicians, and preachers. Bishop Walter Hawkins, a 1981 Grammy winner from the Oakland-based Love Center Choir, passed through the church, and in the 1950s so did the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his young daughter Aretha, who later became the Queen of Soul. Frequent visitors from the city itself included Sam Cooke and James Cleveland.

Jesse Jackson had cosigned the mortgage loan to finance the new church’s construction, but Evans-Reid says the city of Chicago put a stop to the project by interfering with building permits. For seven years—until it was finally completed in 1973—what’s now Fellowship was just a steel skeleton waiting for its body. While the city and the nation remained divided, Fellowship’s bare bones became a beacon of hope.

During that time, Evans advised his followers to fast and pray, just as Jesus, his apostles, and countless other biblical figures had done as a way to seek God’s comfort, guidance, and protection. “When we fast and pray, we fast and pray to God,” Evans-Reid says. “We asked him to answer our prayers, if it’s his will and his way.”

Evans-Reid has a story that goes along with that painting. She laughs as she explains that her niece found it at a garage sale in Louisiana. Her niece paid $40 for it—Evans-Reid kept the receipt as proof.