Faith, grief and a golden buzzer

Malachi Henderson huddled with 52 choir members backstage. Crying. Praying. Pacing up and down the hallway. Pinching themselves that they’d actually made it.  

This wasn’t their typical community choir concert in their hometown of Detroit, Michigan; it was a chance to make history on the biggest stage in the world–America’s Got Talent in Pasadena, California. 

After a pep talk from Terry Crews, Henderson wiped his tears and followed his choir members on stage.

One by one, they trickled out of the wings in white collared shirts, navy sweater vests and matching purple bow ties. The cheers of over 2,000 people filled the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Henderson looked up to see the panel of celebrity judges. Howie Mandel, Gabrielle Union, Juliane Hough and Simon Cowell. 

“This is a big historical thing for a lot of us and our families, being a bunch of black kids from Detroit,” Henderson said. “It was a shock. Like, we actually made it.” 

For many choir members, this opportunity was a way out.

Back home in uptown Detroit, poverty, crime and economic hardship rocked their community. Houses were robbed, burnt down on the street, or taken away by the banks. Homes where kids are missing a mother or father, or a parent is sick. 

When Henderson was 15, his father was shot at through the window of their home. The bullet hit the back of the metal chair he sat on, missing him by inches. 

This was the reality for many kids growing up in Detroit. 

“We’re trying to prove the fact that there is talent in Detroit, there is a voice in Detroit and the voice is within those of us students who are representing the future that we strive to attain,” Henderson said. “Not only for ourselves, but for our families.” 

As audience members took their seats and the cheers faded, music director Anthony White took the microphone to introduce himself and his students. Simon Cowell asked how the choir came to be. 

“We’re here to let the world know we have some wonderful young people in the city of Detroit,” White said. 

Cowell replied. 

“I actually love choirs, and we’ve never had a choir win this show.” 

White turned to his students, his eyes wide and a smile on his face. 

“Well, this could be the first.” 

The crowd applauded. White stepped towards the left side of the stage to begin conducting their rendition of “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.  The students started singing acapella. Softly. Slowly. Standing completely still. Then, the clashing of drums. A dance break. 

Soloists stepped to the front and rapped the verses as the others belted behind them. On the final phrase, “This is our moment,” they threw their arms towards the ceiling, closed their fists and lowered them slowly. 

The crowd erupted into a standing ovation. Simon Cowell held his fist up to match their final pose. 

And as the judges began to vote, Terry Crews stepped out from backstage, asking them to wait. His eyes welled up with tears. 

“Every young man and woman on this stage represents me, and where I came from.” Crews said. 

While growing up in Flint, Michigan, Crews said he dreamed of making it big in Hollywood, and he said the Detroit Youth Choir had done just that. 

“They did so well, that I have to do this.”  

 Students covered their mouths with their hands. Some fell to their knees. 

Crews hopped off the stage and walked towards the judges’ table. In one sweeping motion, he launched his arm up and slammed his hand on the golden buzzer.

Gold confetti shot out from above them. Henderson fell into the arms of the singers beside him, jumping, crying and holding on to one another.

“My brain was just shut off,” Henderson said. “I’m actually at a place where I want to be, doing something I want to do for the rest of my life, and my six-year-old mind was just not comprehending that.”

Growing up, Henderson’s parents told the story of how music made a mark on him the day he was born. In a hospital room March 1, 2004, his mom panicked when doctors told her that her baby was unresponsive. Quickly, his dad began to sing, and Henderson’s body started to wiggle. The doctors couldn’t believe it. His body was responding to the music, and his parents took this as a sign: their son was meant to perform. 

From then on, Henderson’s parents signed him up for ballroom, African and hip-hop dance classes, and put him in community choir and band. During nap time in preschool, his teacher, Mr. Wilson, played piano to help the kids fall asleep. But as his classmates began to doze off, Henderson just sang along. 

“Ever since Pre-K, I knew that I wanted to sing,” Henderson said. “I knew that I wanted to perform.” 

Every morning at 7 a.m., Henderson’s dad would shake him and his siblings out of bed and make them breakfast. His mom would put on old-school gospel music, and the sound of Mahilia Jackson, Kirk Franklin and Richard Smallwood filled their home. His father was known to keep their doors open to anyone, as long as they respected his house and his family. Boys in the neighborhood who didn’t have a father figure at home would stop by the Hendersons’, and he’d teach them manners, yardwork, how to tie a tie and how to fix machines. 

On his first day of high school, Henderson learned his dad had multiple myeloma: a rare form of blood cancer. 

“At that point, my world just did a whole 360,” Henderson said. 

His sophomore year, his dad suffered brain bleeds and began spending more time in the hospital than at home. 

That same year, Henderson and the Detroit Youth Choir were visited by an America’s Got Talent producer, who asked them to audition for the show in California. 

While in Pasadena, Henderson trained with his choir every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They ran laps around their hotel in the California heat while singing at the same time, with only a 10-minute break to catch their breath and eat a snack.  

They met celebrities like Queen Latifah, Macklemore, and Trisha Paytas. In their limited free time, they shopped at the Paseo shopping center or rehearsed their songs in a cathedral near the hotel. Behind the scenes, 16-year-old Henderson even got his first kiss. 

Meanwhile, his father’s health continued to decline. 

“I would call my dad,” Henderson said. “And my dad would be crying on the phone saying, ‘I saw you did so good!’ And I end up crying.”

At the Vegas live shows, neither parent could attend. Henderson’s mom had to stay and take care of his dad, so his sister stood in for both of them. 

After the competition, talent acts are contractually required to continue performing for AGT events. In Detroit, on the way home from a COVID-19 screening required for an upcoming performance at Carnegie Hall in New York, Henderson called his dad. He and his mother had left his father home alone, and Henderson wanted to check in on him. Suddenly, his father stopped talking. He couldn’t breathe. Henderson started to scream. His dad’s biggest fear was dying alone, because it was the same way his dad had passed. Listening to his shallow breaths, Henderson felt his fear through the phone. 

They sped home and jumped out of the car. Henderson ran to the door and found him inside, catching his breath and starting to breathe again. He threw his arms around him and squeezed. 

After performances with AGT ended in the summer, going into his senior year of high school, both of Henderson’s parents ended up in the hospital. His mom, Robin, was catatonic. His father suffered more severe brain bleeds. His older sister worked in L.A., and his brother lived in Chicago. They could only visit for a couple of days at a time, so for the majority of the summer, Henderson, the youngest in his family, stayed home alone. 

“He was taught to be independent,” Robin said. “He was taught how to take care of himself. His dad was really big on knowing how to take care of yourself as a man.” 

He’d hang up the bills on the refrigerator in order of their due dates and used his AGT income to pay for them. He didn’t have a driver’s license because his parents were sick and didn’t have time to help him practice, so he took their car and drove illegally to the closest store, Dollar General, to get himself groceries and medicine.  

“My childhood ended the summer before my senior year, because I was now taking on the responsibilities of what an adult would do,” Henderson said. 

Despite these challenges, Henderson ended high school with a 5.0 GPA. As Robin sat in the audience at his high school graduation, smiling as he walked across the stage, it was announced that he had been awarded the highest scholarship amount ever given to a student at his high school. She stood up from her seat and cheered. 

“Over and over again, God has shown favor over his life,” Robin said. “I am so grateful to God that Malachi is my son.”

His freshman year at Bethel, Henderson auditioned for the 2024 production of Beauty and the Beast and landed the role of Lumiere. As rehearsals began, he started meeting other students and bonding with the cast. Back in Detroit, his father lay in a hospital bed. Days before opening night, they talked over the phone. His dad cried and told him he was scared. Henderson held back tears, telling him there was nothing to worry about. 

It was the last conversation they had. 

After his father’s passing, Henderson started to question God’s hand in his life. 

“I was upset with him, and that he was allowing all this to happen to me,” Henderson said. “But I [knew] I’d rather be mad at him and still walk with him, then be mad at him and walk away.”

In his grief, he started to see how God showed up in the people in his life. 

Like his professors, who dismissed him from schoolwork and attendance in each of his classes for the remainder of the semester.

Or his Bethel facilities management coworkers, who became the reason he woke up each morning, excited to go to work. 

His neighbors, family members and high school friends in Detroit who showed up at his door with home-cooked meals for their family.  

The homeless woman in Coney Island who stopped him outside a restaurant to tell him she’d known his father, that he carries his legacy and that she will be praying for him. 

A North Village apartment full of his closest friends gathered to celebrate his recent 22nd birthday, singing karaoke to songs from Hamilton and Frozen.  

“He placed me with a lot of people who lifted my spirits up, to the point where I’d forget I lost my father,” Henderson said.

In February, Henderson performed in his last musical at Bethel as Chino in West Side Story. 

During one of the final performances, Henderson spotted friends in the audience who had traveled from Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota to watch the show. Quickly, he remembered someone who was missing. 

“It hits hard when the one person whom you’ve known all your life that has been there for you through so many things, whom you can tell everything to, isn’t there to cherish that one last moment with you,” Henderson said. “But [God] gave me things that I needed to get through my grief. A job, friends, a community, and to go through that process so I could be where I’m at right now.”