Dorothy Love Coates

Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002) was a gospel singer, composer, and civil rights activist from Birmingham, Alabama. She built her reputation leading the Original Gospel Harmonettes and later her own group, writing and recording hard-driving Black gospel through the 1950s and beyond. Outside of music, she marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and took part in voter registration drives, often weaving criticism of racial injustice directly into her songs.