Jimmy Swaggart Is Dead at 90. Black Folks Remember the Snot, the Scams, and the Soft-Focus Salvation

From crying on TV to getting your grandmomma’s last $20, let’s talk about the messy, hilarious history of 80s televangelists in Black households.

Jimmy Swaggart has died at 90.

And I’ll be real with y’all: I just found out he was even still alive. I thought white Jesus raptured him back in ’87 after that snot-soaked “I have sinned” performance on TV.

Now, if you’re under 40, you may not understand how big these televangelists were in the 1980s. They were HUGE! I was a little girl myself, but this was peak Holy Ghost prime-time television.

M’kay, lemme breakdown the all-star lineup for y’all:

Jim Bakker. He turned televangelism into Disneyland for Jesus. Built Heritage USA, sold lifetime timeshares in heaven, and went to prison for fraud.

Tammy Faye Bakker. Jim’s wife and partner in crime. She was famous for mascara that ran down her face like the River Jordan every time she testified. Think of her as the Patron Saint of Campy Christian Kitsch.

Oral Roberts. The OG faith-healer with a direct line to God. Once said the Lord would “call him home” if viewers didn’t cough up $8 million. God as the world’s worst loan shark.

Pat Robertson. Host of The 700 Club, where politics and prophecy mixed like Kool-Aid and cyanide. Would pray hurricanes away from his beach house but send them to heathen neighbors.

Jerry Falwell. Founder of the Moral Majority. Less televangelist, more political operator who made Jesus sound like Ronald Reagan in a choir robe.

Kenneth Copeland. The man who looked Satan dead in the eye and said, “I want a private jet.” Still scamming in HD.

Paul and Jan Crouch. Owners of TBN, the Christian QVC. Jan’s pink wigs were bigger than most prosperity preachers’ bank accounts. They made religion look like Liberace designed the set.

Robert Tilton. The patron saint of late-night infomercial scams. His face would twitch when the Holy Spirit hit him, or when the check cleared.

Benny Hinn. International man of mystery who karate-chopped demons out of you with his white suit jacket. Like televangelist Mortal Kombat.

You see, Black folks have a long, messy, entertaining relationship with these white Southern televangelists. Our grandparents, aunties and uncles would watch Jimmy Swaggart right after shouting down the walls at their own church, like, “We had service this morning, let’s see what the white folks talkin’ ‘bout now.”

Because those shows were productions. This wasn’t some sleepy Wednesday night Bible study in a drafty church basement. No. This was televised theater of salvation.

Think about the lighting alone: it was soft-focus, halo-like. Every preacher bathed in holy fluorescence, looking like they’d just stepped out of the transfiguration. The glow softened their wrinkles, their sins, their scams. It wasn’t just practical, it was psychological warfare. If the devil was darkness, then clearly these men were holy because they were lit up like Times Square.

And the music! Lawwwd, the music was half the hook.

Giant choirs in color-coordinated robes, swaying in synchrony like a sea of salvation. Hammond organs cranking out church in Dolby Stereo. Emotional cues built in. Modulations to get you on your feet, crying, speaking in tongues right in your living room.

You didn’t even have to leave the house to get saved or give all your money away. No bus fare. No judgment for wearing jeans or wearing sponge rollers or a bonnet on your head. Just you, your couch, your TV, and the Holy Ghost in 480p.

And those shows were structured like perfectly calibrated emotional roller coasters. First, they’d hit you with a testimonial. Some poor soul would describe how they were addicted, broke, lost, and then...they found this ministry. Cut to the choir swelling behind them. The camera zooms in on trembling lips.

And there was Jimmy Swaggart on screen sweating through a polyester suit while the camera zoomed in on those crocodile tears.

Jimmy had that Mississippi drawl that sounded like he was reading you a bedtime story about hellfire. He could play that piano while telling you that your soul was in danger unless you sent in that “love offering.”

And let’s not lie: a lot of folks loved it. Or they loved to hate it.

I’m not knocking people who believed. Black folks were struggling in the 80s: Reaganomics, crack epidemic, police brutality. Sometimes it felt like the only safe place was the church, whether in a pew or on the TV screen. And these televangelists knew that. They sold hope, redemption, and healing lines where you’d fall out and wake up wondering who took your wallet.

Let’s also remember Swaggart’s infamous “I have sinned” meltdown. When he got caught with sex workers, he gave us the original viral apology video. Before YouTube existed, Jimmy Swaggart was YouTube. He cried so hard on TV you could hear the snot bubbles. And Black church folks watched like it was the Superbowl Halftime Show, complete with a side of potato salad.

Truth is, Black folks have always had a complicated relationship with these white Southern preachers. They could be racist as hell on Sunday morning but magnetic on TV Sunday night. Swaggart’s own son Rev. Donnie caught heat for blasting Black churches for supporting Kamala Harris’s bid for the presidency.

Back in the 80s, Black families would be humming gospel chords Jimmy stole from us while mailing him the last $20 in the house. He was part of that whole generation of prosperity pimps who sold a cross between therapy, entertainment, and good old-fashioned Southern hustle.

But here’s the part that really sticks with me: Even after that sinning, people kept sending money. Because forgiveness sells even better than fear. And Jimmy knew it. He bet on it.

He was a preacher, but also a showman, a marketer, a master manipulator of the American psyche. He understood that religion on TV wasn’t just about God, it was about drama, music, lighting, emotion, sales.

So yes, Jimmy Swaggart has died, Y’all. And I’ll offer a respectful hmmm. Honestly, the man was a character in Black households. Some of our folks watched him, mocked him, believed him, cursed him, and imitated his ugly cry in the mirror. I just waited patiently in front of the tube, hoping some adult would finally change the channel to WWF so I could watch Dusty Rhodes, Rick Flair and them. Because I was born an atheist.

Swaggert was the original televangelist villain who taught us to side-eye every preacher with a Cadillac. He left behind a whole industry of money-changers in the temple, some of whom still got your grandmomma and auntie on autopay.

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