Rosa Horn

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Rosa Horn
Born(1880-12-02)December 2, 1880
Sumter, South Carolina, United States
DiedMay 11, 1976(1976-05-11) (aged 95)
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
OccupationsPentecostal church leader, preacher and radio host
Years active1913-1969
EmployerWHN radio
Children2

Rosa Artimus Horn (December 2, 1880 – May 11, 1976), also known as Mother Horn and the Pray for me Priestess, was an African-American Pentecostal church leader, preacher and radio host. She founded the "Pentecostal Faith Church for All Nations" in Harlem, New York City.

Biography

Horn was born on December 2, 1880,[1] in Sumter, South Carolina.[2][3] Her grandparents had been enslaved, and her grandmother, Ellen Hamilton, had purchased her freedom and the freedom of her husband before Emancipation.[2]

Horn was one of ten children[4] and her mother Sarah Baker insisted that she attend a private school in Sumter.[5] Horn worked as a seamstress in Augusta, Georgia, after leaving education.[1][4]

Horn married musician William Artimus and they had two children together.[1][2] Her husband discovered that he had terminal tuberculosis and Horn later claimed in Negro Digest magazine that he had then tried to kill her, but "the Lord wrought a miracle and lifted me bodily from one chair to another just as my love-crazed husband fired a bullet at my back."[1] After her husband died, Horn had a spiritual vision and moved to Evanston, Illinois, with her daughter Jessie.[1]

Horn had been a member of the Methodist Church,[4] but was ordained by the American faith healer, Evangelist and revivalist Maria Woodworth Etter in Indiana in 1913.[2] She preached in Evanston in the early 1920s.[3]

After remarrying in 1926, Horn settled in Brooklyn, New York to expand her ministry.[5][6] Frustrated by the refusal of some local Protestant denominations to ordain women, in 1930 Horn founded the "Pentecostal Faith Church for All Nations" in Harlem, New York City.[3][7][8] The Church was also known as "Mount Calvary"[6] and Horn was known in the church as Mother Horn.[7] Frank Rasky of the Negro Digest visited Horn's church and reported that she preached that she would "punch the devil in the eye."[9] She had established churches in five cities along the East Coast by 1934.[1][4]

As her ministry gained popularity, Horn was invited to broadcast the program You Pray for Me Church of the Air nationally on WHN radio,[10] from 1933.[5] WHN launched an advertising campaign which promoted a rivalry between her and the Church of Christ (Holiness) preacher Lightfoot Solomon Michaux.[4] On air, Horn crusaded against "dens of iniquity," such as cabarets, dance halls and pool rooms.[1] She became known as the "Pray for me Priestess" by her radio listeners.[5]

Over the next three decades, thousands of members joined Horn's church,[5] with poor black migrants from the American South attracted to her prayer ministry.[1] Members included a teenage James Baldwin.[5] His stage play The Amen Corner explores the role of a church in an African-American family and his character Pastor Margaret was influenced by Horn's life and ministry.[4][5][11]

In 1960, plainclothes police officers raided the barber shop located in Horn's Church loft.[12] She ceased preaching in 1969.[1]

Horn moved to Baltimore, Maryland, and died there on May 11, 1976, aged 95.[3][4] She was buried in the Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in New York.

References

  1. Smith, Jessie Carney (1992). Notable Black American Women. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale Research. pp. 296–297. ISBN 978-0-8103-4749-6.
  2. Sánchez-Walsh, Arlene (July 26, 2014). "Re-Scripting Pentecostal Saints: Curious Life Of Mother Rosa Horn". Re-Generación. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  3. "Horn, Rosa Artimus", African American Studies Center, Oxford University Press, April 7, 2005, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.41715, ISBN 9780195301731, retrieved May 7, 2026
  4. Alexander, Estrelda Y. (May 3, 2011). Black Fire: One Hundred Years of African American Pentecostalism. InterVarsity Press. pp. 307–308. ISBN 978-0-8308-2586-8.
  5. Walton, Jonathan L. (February 1, 2009). Watch This!: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism. NYU Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-8147-9468-5.
  6. Appiah, Anthony; Gates Jr., Henry Louis (2005). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press. pp. 236–237. ISBN 978-0-19-522327-9.
  7. Hardy, Clarence E. (December 31, 2020), "5. Church Mothers and Pentecostals in the Modern Age", in Yong, Amos; Alexander, Estrelda Y. (eds.), Afro-Pentecostalism, New York University Press, pp. 83–94, doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814797303.003.0005, ISBN 978-0-8147-8907-0, retrieved May 7, 2026
  8. Hester, Cynthia (November 15, 2023). "A Historical Review: Black Women Who Won the Battle to Preach". Bible.org Blogs. Retrieved May 7, 2026.
  9. Rasky, Frank (1950). "Harlem's Religious Zealots". Negro Digest. p. 8.
  10. Salzman, Jack; Smith, David L.; West, Cornel (1996). Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. Macmillan Library Reference. p. 1300. ISBN 978-0-02-897345-6.
  11. Hardy, Clarence E. (2003). James Baldwin's God: Sex, Hope, and Crisis in Black Holiness Culture. Univ. of Tennessee Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-1-57233-230-0.
  12. DuPree, Sherry Sherrod (1996). African-American Holiness Pentecostal Movement: An Annotated Bibliography. Taylor & Francis. p. 451. ISBN 978-0-8240-1449-0.