After leaving his job as a railway cook, Marcelino Manuel da Graca, using the anglicized version of his name, Charles Manuel (Emmanuel) Grace, began using the title "Bishop".
In 1919, he built the first House of Prayer in West Wareham, Massachusetts at the cost of $39.
He later established branches in Charlotte, North Carolina and Newark, New Jersey.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Bishop Grace traveled America preaching and establishing the United House of Prayer for All People.
The Constitution and By-Laws of The United House of Prayer, promulgated in 1929, stated that the purpose of the organization in pertinent part was "to erect and maintain places of worship and assembly where all people may gather prayer and to worship the Almighty God, irrespective of denomination or creed."
He traveled extensively throughout the segregated South in the 1920s and 1930s preaching to integrated congregations years before the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and the religious ecumenical movements which followed.

Bishop Grace died in 1960 and is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
After leaving his job as a railway cook, Marcelino Manuel da Graca, using the anglicized version of his name, Charles Manuel (Emmanuel) Grace, began using the title "Bishop". In 1919, he built the first House of Prayer in West Wareham, Massachusetts at the cost of $39. He later established branches in Charlotte, North Carolina and Newark, New Jersey. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Bishop Grace traveled America preaching and establishing the United House of Prayer for All People. The Constitution and By-Laws of The United House of Prayer, promulgated in 1929, stated that the purpose of the organization in pertinent part was "to erect and maintain places of worship and assembly where all people may gather prayer and to worship the Almighty God, irrespective of denomination or creed." He traveled extensively throughout the segregated South in the 1920s and 1930s preaching to integrated congregations years before the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and the religious ecumenical movements which followed.
Bishop Grace died in 1960 and is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Marcelino Manuel da Graça