Picture book biography told in rhyming verse. Charles Tindley was born free, though his childhood was far from easy. He had no chance to go to school, but the spirituals he heard as he worked in the fields made him long to know how to read the Gospel. Late at night, he taught himself to read from scraps of newspapers. From those small scraps, Charles raised himself to become a founding father of American gospel music whose hymn was the basis for the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome."