From playing Quarterback in the Afro-American Semi-Pros while in High School, to enlisting in the Vietnam war, to becoming a minister and a beacon to Schenectady County, 80 year old retired pastor, veteran and self proclaimed pimp Richard Parsons has lived a very inspiring life.
The army war vet found his calling after escaping death multiple times, with many hardships and avoided fatalities. Here’s how this one man has helped his community for decades.
On May 7th 2024, I sat at Jumping Jacks in Scotia and interviewed the Pastor (who’s also my uncle) on his upbringing and his road to being a minister.
Born on May 26, 1944, he was raised by his eldest sister Daisy with his 11 other siblings, him being the youngest child. When asked about his transition from highschool to the military he said that “In 1966 you had a choice, you either go to jail or you go into the army, and I chose the army.”
While being in the airborne infantry, his biggest achievement in the 6 years of his service was his record of 38 jumps. Once he got discharged he was given another choice. “Rather than running the streets and going to jail, God called me to preach.”
Known as a “street preacher,” he would go to shelters, bars, strip clubs, brothels and many other places to grab “broken people.” He explains to become a preacher “you get a calling and you go to school to learn how to minister to the people. I had a special [calling], I was doing things other people weren’t doing because of my background, I was a gangster, a pimp and all of that.”
“You know, the dog on Broadway in Albany? Nipper? I had a drug deal gone bad [there] and I got in a car accident and it took down the telephone pole. That’s when I turned around and got saved.”
He opened his own church to help those in need to turn their lives around like he did in the 60’s. He soon after saw what his mission was, “to seek and save the lost.”
He opened the Bethesda House on State Street in Schenectady as well as the State Street Presbyterian Church in order to help any and all kinds of people. “I was called for this specifically, because none of them [pastors] had the ideas to go to the penitentiary, the crack house, the ho house, the pimps, and help them witness and give themselves to Christ. they couldn’t relate.”
One of my main questions to Pastor Parsons was if he felt a burden, or forced into becoming a minister because everyone in his family is a part 0f the church in some way. I wanted to know whether or not he wished he went another direction with his career, and if he felt accomplished in all of his goals.
“To go back to where I came from to be a witness to them, and they’ll get saved and turn their lives over to God- You don’t see people doing what I’m doing now. You didn’t even see it back then. I had that kind of rapport, and God said it was my calling.”
Pastor Parsons ended our time with these words: “The environment I come out of is the gangsters, the pimps and all that, I was saved from that. My calling was to seek and save the lost and I did.”