The Preacherman is Vincent Pannizzo, but most who come to his sermons don't know his name. Or that he was working on a doctorate at UC Berkeley when he dropped out nine years ago to begin preaching. Or that he comes from middle-class comfort in New Jersey, did a three-year hitch in the Army and once dreamed of being a history professor. To his street flock, Pannizzo is simply "the Preacherman," who shows up seven nights a week, rain or not, to gently sermonize and hand out sandwiches, blankets and the few dollars he makes through day labor.
Lucid and soft-spoken, he is not mentally ill, by all accounts. Even the police and shopkeepers who monitor his comings and goings say they find this remarkable. They assumed one must be crazy to give up a promising life to sleep in homeless camps and preach to other street people in one of the most violent, impoverished stretches of East Oakland.
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thank you for sharing this one...
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