Joshua Nelson is an American gospel singer and Hebrew teacher.

Nelson is Black and Jewish (he has called himself "the KKK's worst nightmare"). He became fascinated with music when he was 8, living in Brooklyn. His fascination lasted after he graduated from Newark's Performing Arts High School. He was the school's official soloist for the 4 years he studied there. He went on to do a 2-year college and kibbutz program in Israel studying at the Hebrew Union College as well as the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

While attending Hebrew University, he started blending Hebrew texts with gospel melodies and arranging Jewish hymns in gospel style, resulting in solo CDs like "Hebrew Soul."

Nelson is both a Jewish Gospel singer in the tradition of Mahalia Jackson, and a Hebrew teacher full-time in the Hebrew school at Sharey-Tefilo-Israel, a Reform synagogue in South Orange, NJ, when he is not on the road. He also serves as director of music at Hopewell Baptist Church in Newark, NJ, which is housed in a former synagogue (the former B’nai Jeshurun.

Joshua (Hebrew: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ‎‎ Yĕhôshúa‘; Greek: Ἰησοῦς, Arabic: يوشع بن نون‎ Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn), is a figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel (Num 13-14) and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He is the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua. According to the books Exodus, Numbers and Joshua, he became the leader of the Israelite tribes after the death of Moses; his name was Hoshe'a the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, but Moses called him Yehoshu'a (Joshua) (Numbers 13:16) the name by which he is commonly known; and he was born in Egypt prior to the Exodus, and was probably the same age as Caleb, with whom he is occasionally associated.

He was one of the twelve spies of Israel sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan. (Numbers 13:1-16) After the death of Moses, he led the Israelite tribes in the conquest of Canaan, and allocated the land to the tribes. According to Biblical chronology, Joshua lived between 1500–1390 BCE, or sometime in the late Bronze Age. According to Joshua 24:29, Joshua died at the age of 110.

Carlton D'Metrius Pearson, DD (born March 19, 1953 in San Diego, California) is an American minister. At one time, he was the pastor of the Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center, later named it Higher Dimensions Family Church which was one of the largest churches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the 1990s, it grew to an average attendance of over 5,000. Due to his stated belief in universal reconciliation, Pearson rapidly began to lose his influence in ministry with the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops and was eventually declared a heretic by his peers in 2004.

Pearson was the Senior Minister of Christ Universal Temple, a large New Thought congregation in Chicago, Illinois.

Pearson attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, where he was mentored by Oral Roberts. He was licensed and ordained in the Church of God in Christ. Pearson formed his own church, the Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center, which became one of the largest churches in Tulsa. He was one of only two African American ministers to appear on National television, reaching hundreds of thousands to millions of people, weekly and has been credited as being one of the first black ministers to hold major conferences in arenas & stadiums within the African American fundamentalist movement. During the 1990s Pearson's church grew to an average attendance of over 6,000, and in 1997 Pearson was ordained as a bishop. In 2000, Pearson campaigned for George W. Bush, and later he was invited to the White House. Pearson had one of the most watched TV programs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Pearson was also the host of the AZUSA Conference in Tulsa. Pearson was also a travelling evangelist, holding two-day revivals across the continent. Pearson also gave many up and coming ministers and singers credibility and a global audience, including T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Donnie McClurkin and many others. Pearson has also met and counseled with former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Mahalia Jackson ( /məˈheɪljə/ mə-HAYL-yə; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer. Possessing a powerful contralto voice, she was referred to as "The Queen of Gospel". Jackson became one of the most influential gospel singers in the world and was heralded internationally as a singer and civil rights activist. She was described by entertainer Harry Belafonte as "the single most powerful black woman in the United States". She recorded about 30 albums (mostly for Columbia Records) during her career, and her 45 rpm records included a dozen "golds"—million-sellers.

Born as Mahala Jackson and nicknamed "Halie", Jackson grew up in the Black Pearl section of the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. The three-room dwelling on Pitt Street housed thirteen people and a dog. This included Little Mahala (named after her aunt, Mahala Clark-Paul whom the family called Aunt Duke), her brother Roosevelt Hunter, whom they called Peter, and her mother Charity Clark, who worked as both a maid and a laundress. Several aunts and cousins lived in the house as well. Aunt Mahala was given the nickname "Duke" after proving herself the undisputed "boss" of the family. The extended family (the Clarks) consisted of her mother's siblings – Isabell, Mahala, Boston, Porterfield, Hannah, Alice, Rhoda, Bessie, their children, grandchildren and patriarch Rev. Paul Clark, a former slave. Mahalia's father, John A. Jackson, Sr. was a stevedore (dockworker) and a barber who later became a Baptist minister. He fathered four other children besides Mahalia – Wilmon (older) and then Yvonne, Pearl and Johnny, Jr. (by his marriage shortly after Halie's birth). Her father's sister, Jeanette Jackson-Burnett, and husband, Josie, were vaudeville entertainers.