my interest in Monk takes me to Charles Albert Tindley

My last post ended with a video of Thelonious Monk playing what he called, "Bye and Bye, when the morning comes." As I read about Monk's family moving to New York City and the conditions in which he lived, I want to say, "how could I imagine." But catch myself, because if I can't imagine, I can't attempt to feel. and the Lord knows I need to work on feeling. As I read on in the Biography on Monk, I learn about the man who wrote that hymn...

Charles Albert Tindley, who also wrote Stand By Me
Tindley is known as one of the “found­ing fa­thers of Amer­i­can Gos­pel mu­sic.” The son of slaves, he taught him­self to read and write at age 17. He was a driv­en young man, work­ing as a jan­i­tor while at­tend­ing night school, and earn­ing his di­vin­i­ty de­gree through a cor­re­spond­ence course. In 1902, he be­came pas­tor of the Cal­va­ry Meth­o­dist Epis­co­pal Church in Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­vania, the church where he had ear­li­er been the jan­i­tor. At the time of Tindley’s death, his church had 12,500 mem­bers. The Tind­ley Tem­ple Unit­ed Meth­o­dist Church in Phil­a­del­phia was named af­ter him. Tindley’s “I’ll Over­come Some Day” was the ba­sis for the Amer­i­can ci­vil rights an­them “We Shall Over­come,” pop­u­lar­ized in the 1960’s.

Bye and bye, when the morning comes

We are tossed and driven
on the restless sea of time;
Somber skies and howling tempests
oft succeed a bright sunshine;
In that land of perfect day,
when the mists have rolled away,
We will understand it better by and by.

Chorus:
Bye and bye, when the morning comes,
When the saints of God are gathered home,
We will tell the story how we've overcome,
For we'll understand it better by and by.

Verse:
We are often destitute
of the things that life demands,
Want of food and want of shelter,
thirsty hills and barren lands;
We are trusting in the Lord,
and according to God's Word,
We will understand it better by and by.

Chorus:

Verse:
Trials dark on every hand,
and we cannot understand
All the ways that God could lead us
to that blessed promised land;
But He guides us with His eye,
and we'll follow till we die,
For we'll understand it better by and by.

Chorus:

Well it's A for the ark, it was a wonderful boat
Build it on the land, you'll get water there to float
And B for the beast at the ending of the wood
We will understand it better bye and bye

Children, it's bye and bye
Better bye and bye
We will understand it better bye and bye
Children, it's bye and bye
Better bye and bye
We will understand it better bye and bye

One of these these mornings, coming bright and soon
Will the veil of the temple be torn in two, will it be made whole again
And when we get in heaven, gonna understand it then
We don't understand it better bye and bye

[chorus]

Well this old world is not my home
Got to see that city has been built by God
And Jesus remembers I am a fallen sinner
We will understand it better bye and bye

[chorus]
We will understand it better bye and bye
We will understand it better bye and bye