Donnie McClurkin was one of ten children in a
relatively poor family from Amityville, New York. Donnie’s mother sang in the
church choir and Donnie sang his first solo in church at the age of 3. Despite
their meager economic status the family was full of love and happiness until
the 6th of June in 1968. That was the day Donnie’s world went from the best of
times to the worst of times.
Donnie was eight years old at the time and
playing with his two year old brother in the front yard. A ball he was playing
with went into the street and he instinctively went after it. What he didn’t
realize was that his two year old brother followed after him. When Donnie
picked up the ball and turned around he saw a car traveling at a high rate of
speed heading toward his brother, who was now in the road. He and his mother,
screaming through the window, watched the toddler bounce under the car as it
went over him.
The funeral was held two days after the
accident. After the funeral the McClurkin children were sent home with their
mother’s uncle, while the parents stayed with family. Unbeknownst to the
parents, the uncle was a pedophile. In the evening the uncle raped Donnie and a
couple of his sisters. Scared and confused Donnie and the sisters did not tell
their parents what their uncle had done to them.
Looking back at that night Donnie said in the
documentary, “The seed of perversion was planted through that molestation. It
was a thing that made my life a living hell. An eight year old can’t handle it,
and it sparks something in an eight year old that’s not supposed to spark until
puberty. … Things start popping in an eight year old mind that doesn’t happen
in normal eight year old minds, because the Pandora’s Box was opened, and you
can’t close it after that.”
Donnie’s mother went into deep depression.
Sometimes she would tell Donnie, “You killed my baby. You killed my baby.” The
family environment turned volatile. Physical violence between husband and wife
became the norm with the police intervening on several occasions. His older
sisters began using drugs and arguing with their mother.
There were other compounding factors in
Donnie’s life. He was shy, reclusive, and athletically inept. He couldn’t
dribble, hit, or catch a ball. He was also born with the physical deformity of
web hands and feet and his peers would make fun of it. He felt like he didn’t
fit in anywhere.
The following summer, July of 1969, Donnie
received Jesus as his Lord and Savior at Amityville Gospel Tabernacle. For
Donnie “the church became more therapeutic than anything else, because it was a
place of escape.” Whenever hell was breaking loose at home he would go to the
church. Because he didn’t fit in any peer group, he threw himself into music
and playing the piano. Donnie recalled feeling that “when I played piano,
everybody liked me.”
At age eleven Donnie was able to meet the
gospel singer whose music was stirring a new passion in him for gospel music.
Andrae Crouch prayed with Donnie and laid hands on him seeking God’s blessings
for the young man; to give Donnie what God had given Andrae. Donnie says that
his ear was opened in a new way that day so that he was able to pick out notes
and music clearer.
At thirteen Donnie was molested again. This
time the perpetrator was an older teenager; the son of his uncle who had raped
him five years earlier. For years Donnie would keep these secrets to himself.
This was a time in Donnie’s life that he was, as he describes it, “surrounded
by a sea of women.” That was all he knew. Donnie’s quest for sexual identity
was a sea of confusion.
One woman in the church took a mentoring
interest in the young Donnie and helped him break some of the feminine
tendencies that he had acquired. She taught him how to hold a microphone in a
more masculine way, to put bass in his voice, and sing praises to his God in a
manly way. The men his church did not step up and fill that need. As Donnie
explained it, “She dared to do what others wouldn’t do, and she helped save my
life. … it took somebody to be strong enough to say, “I don’t care how people
take it. I’m going to help that boy.””
In high school Donnie’s peers referred to him
as “the preacher,” because he preached to everyone. He organized a gospel group
with his sisters and friends, and refined their sound meticulously. He got a
break when he was selected to sing a solo at a music shop hosted by the Winan
family, and he made a lasting impression. Donnie’s solo was so moving that they
ended the final service prematurely after he sang. As Marvin Winan recalled,
“We literally stopped everything and ended it, because there was nothing else
we could do.” As sure as Donnie was about his Savior, he was still confused
about his sexual identity and homosexuality was his inclination.
A few years later another act of providence
placed him in a Broadway production with the Winans called “Don’t Get God
Started;” the first gospel show on Broadway. Donnie was the understudy for the
male lead vocalist, Marvin Winan. The Winans became Donnie’s second family and
at the age of 29 he followed Marvin Winan to Detroit to be part of a new church
they were starting.
At the age of 29 Donnie had never lived on
his own before, so he became quite comfortable sleeping on Marvin and Vicki
Winan’s couch. When Marvin Winan finally told him he had to get his own place
he was angry and scared. He was literally afraid to be a man. Looking back on
the tough love Marvin Winan showed him, Donnie said that Marvin Winan’s tough
love was the best thing he could have done for him at that time in his life,
because Marvin knew Donnie had to do something on his own. Donnie found himself
in a sea of men in Detroit. They showed him by precept and example what a man
does. Homosexuality was now something in his past, not in his present or his
future.
After some time in Detroit Donnie felt led by
the Holy Spirit to start a choir in New York and with the backing of Savoy
Records Donnie gave life to The New York Restoration Choir. From there he
recorded solo through Warner Brothers Records and then Verity Records.
1990 was a year of a miracle in Donnie’s
life. Donnie was having some health problems, passing blood, and a bone marrow
test showed that he had acute leukemia. People prayed around the clock on
behalf of Donnie, fasted, and laid their pleas before God. When Donnie went
back to have the test reconfirmed, they found no evidence of cancer.
After leading Bible studies in New York,
Donnie started holding Sunday evening worship services in Hempstead, Long
Island. In 2001 the evening worship services became the Perfecting Faith Church
in Freeport, New York. This statement by Donnie best sums up his life’s
journey, “Music can get people to the edge, to the brink, but the gospel, the
preaching gets them to change.”
Donnie McClurkin continues to tell his story,
including his journey out of homosexuality. He has a passion for others who
have been molested or who just seek victory over homosexuality. Donnie explains
it this way. “The gay community is saying that I’m a homophobe and that what
I’m saying is not real. And I don’t have a problem with that, because I’m not
looking to convert everybody from homosexuality. Those that are involved in
that lifestyle and are happy there – stay there. But there are some of us that
were broken, that are in hell, that don’t want this life. That for one reason
or another it was thrust upon them. There are some that have been broken by
pedophilia. There are some people that have been hurt and wounded, and they’re
sexually confused, and they are in hell. That was me.”
“The reason I continue to tell this
testimony, even at the expense of the ridicule and assaults, and the verbal
attacks, and the threats of exposure, from people who say, Well he’s still
involved and I’m going to find him … he’s still doing it and he’s still there.”
I have to keep telling the testimony, because if I don’t, there’s no hope for
those who want to come out.”
compiled from the Donnie McClurkin Story- From Darkness To Light.
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