pursuit of this grandson of church ministers . He would soon be taking huge bounds along this road with his album Giant Steps .
A family history . We write “ ministers ” in the plural because both of Trane ’ s grandfathers were in fact ministers . His maternal grandfather , William Wilson Blair , belonged to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church , one of the two oldest and most important African-American churches . He was head of St . Stephen AME Zion church in High Point , North Carolina , and had eight children , including the saxophonist ’ s mother , by his wife , Alice Gertrude , born in 1898 , who accompanied her father ’ s choir on the piano and graduated in 1925 from Livingstone College , Salisbury , where she was noted for her singing ability . In Hamlet , she married John Robert Coltrane , the son of Rev . William H . Coltrane , born in 1901 . Alice and John Robert had a son , John William Coltrane , born on September 23 , 1926 , and they returned to High Point . Alice worked at home and Trane ’ s father worked as a tailor for various shops before setting up a pressing and dry-cleaning business . While little is known about his paternal grandfather , his maternal grandfather , William Wilson Blair , was of considerable importance . His position in the clerical hierarchy took him on visits to parishes throughout North Carolina , and although absent a good deal of the time , he nevertheless exerted a great influence on the young Coltrane , not only through his prestigious position in local politics and the faith community , but also through his extensive library , in which religious works rubbed shoulders with books on the history of black America and collections of work by African-American poets . “ I grew up in that ”, the saxophonist would later recall ; while at school , he had in fact completed an assignment on the renowned African-American classical contralto Marian Anderson and copied out a poem by activist writer Langston Hughes .
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