The mission of the Heritage Music Foundation is to preserve and nurture Gospel music as a viable fine art form for all people, through the building of the Gospel House. The Gospel House will stand as a facility of education, information, and a repository for Gospel research, technology and history.
Margaret Pleasant Douroux Ph.D
Dr. Margaret Pleasant Douroux
CEO/Founder,
Heritage Music Foundation
The concept for the Gospel House is the brainchild of Margaret Pleasant Douroux Ph.D., founder and CEO of the Heritage Music Foundation. The concept was inspired by several spiritual, educational, musical, and philanthropic influences in her life that have helped to shape her career as an educator, school psychologist, composer, musician, church, and community leader.
Dr. Douroux, daughter of the late Rev. Earl A. Pleasant and Mrs. Olga Pleasant, was educated in the Los Angeles public school system. She attended Southern University and obtained a B.A. degree at California State University Los Angeles. She earned a M.S. degree, obtained teaching credentials, and an Advanced Master's Degree at the University of Southern California. Her Ph.D. was earned at the University of Beverly Hills in education. During her 13-year career with Los Angeles City Schools, Dr. Douroux served as an elementary school teacher, guidance counselor, and school psychologist.
Her professional education career was one of two major aspects of Dr. Douroux's life. The other began at an early age when she performed as an accompanist with the children's choir at a Baptist church where her father served as pastor. She went on to become the accompanist for the Sunday School, Baptist Training Union and the Young People's Choir. For 12 years she was director and accompanist for the Young Adult Choir and Orchestra at Mount Moriah Baptist Church, Los Angeles, CA. During these years, Dr. Douroux was influenced by her love for Gospel music.
She has composed hundreds of Gospel music renditions. Many have become world known and are performed by leading vocalists, instrumentalists, and recording stars. Many of these songs are frequently aired over Gospel radio and television stations throughout the United States.
Among the artists who have sung and recorded Dr. Douroux's gospel compositions are Rev. James Cleveland and the Gospel Music Workshop of America, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Pastor Shirley Caeser, Nikki Giovanni, the Donald Vails Choraleers, Keith Pringle and the Pentecostal Community Choir, Marietta Wolfe, Brenda Spraggins, Rev. Maceo Woods and the Christian Tabernacle Choir, the Voices of Watts, the Gospel Soul Children, Helen Baylor, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, WYCB Community Choir, the Voices of Christ, the Chapel Singers and Tammy Bakker, Sounds of Blackness, Tyler Perry's Family Reunion Soundtrack and Kelly Price.
Music Awards presented to Dr. Douroux include the Best Song Award (Rev. James Cleveland and the Gospel Music Workshop of America), the Music Accomplishment Award (ACC News) and the Gospel Academy Award (Daviticus). Dr. Douroux has also received a host of proclamations and official tributes including those from the House of Representatives, State of Texas; the Mayor of Los Angeles, CA; the Mayor of Oklahoma City, OK; the Mayor of Birmingham, AL; the Mayor of Detroit, MI and the Mayor of New Orleans, LA.
Dr. Douroux served as musical director for the theatrical production Black Exodus. She performed in a number of appearances on independent and religious television stations in Southern California. Dr. Douroux was minister of music for the church choirs at Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, Inglewood, CA and Mount Moriah Baptist Church, Los Angeles, CA. She was also minister of music for the Mass Youth Choir at the Rev. Billy Grahams 25th Anniversary Service at the Hollywood Bowl.
Music workshops conducted by Dr. Douroux across the country include those for the California State Congress, the California District Congress, and the California Institute for Women, the Gospel Music Workshop of America, and the National Association of Negro Musicians. She has also led music workshops at churches across the country and in Germany.
The number of churches where she has conducted workshops is too many to list, but it includes landmark churches such as, Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Houston, TX and Fellowship Baptist Church in Chicago, IL.
Dr. Douroux is the author of About my Fathers Business, a biography of the late Rev. Earl A. Pleasant and Principles That Motivate and Enhance Education Among Black Children, and Things that Grow Together: Church Decadence, and numerous lecture materials on the music ministry with accompaniment tapes. She is also the president of the Rev. Earl A. Pleasant Publishing Company in Thousand Oaks, California.
Today, Dr. Douroux devotes much of her time and energies to strengthening the Heritage Music Foundation. She travels the nation enlisting pledges of support and assistance from church and community leaders for the new Gospel House, a long-term dream.