Shrine of The Black Madonna

In conjunction with Rev. Albert Cleage's vision and legacy.

The Power of a Painting: Albert Cleage and the Shrine of the Black Madonna

The Shrine of the Black Madonna still operates in its original location on the West Side of Detroit, not far from Grace Episcopal Church. The teachings of its founder Albert Cleage, and the painting installed behind the altar, continue to offer radical alternative visions of both Christianity and Black empowerment.

It’s the 1960s and Detroit stands as a model American city, automotive plant smokestacks stand proudly as a declaration of its innovative station. But below all of the smoke and steam lie the workers and the inhabitants of The Motor City. Jim Crow laws of The South are just barely being overturned, and the air of white supremacy around the entire country is suffocating, and as seen countless times before: as tensions grow people turn to faith to protect them.

Born in June 1911, the Reverend Albert Cleage (later adopting the Swahili name Jaramogi Abebe Ageyman) is best known for his part in founding the ideas of Black Theology and the Black Christian Nationalist Movement. His founding of the Shrine of the Black Madonna Church, then known as the Central United Church of Christ (CUCC)/Pan African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOCC) in 1957, was a keystone of his work with the Black Christian Nationalists. It created a rallying point of Black Power such as the “people tribunal” and the funeral of Tanya Blanding.

Through his preaching, he emphasized more radical ideas of freedom and realism over traditional idealism and steered the idea of ‘Black Power’ as a matter of religious faith. In his community, Cleage was seen as friendly and approachable, the Reverend Dan Aldridge said, “Reverend Cleage was easy to meet so I got to know him. We got to agree, disagree, that kind of thing. So y’all got [Cleage] on a personal level.” and notes that a lot of young people attend the church and were likely taken with Cleage’s call for revolution, reasoning violence may be necessary for change in a similar way to the ideas of Malcolm X. Yet Cleage’s seems to have rejected the idea of Christianity as a "white man's" faith and wished to emphasize its importance to many Black people by giving them power. Cleage's attempts, however, to tie his religious values to politics seem to have isolated some of his peers who either didn’t agree with his rationalized radicalism or his rejections of traditional Christianity.

Shrine of the Black Madonna building, Linwood St. at Lamothe, Detroit.

Photo credit: Andrew Jameson, 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

On March 26, 1967 Cleage and the CUCC made one of their most controversial moves yet when they unveiled a painting of the Madonna and Child, painted by Glanton Dowdell and General Baker, hanging tall in the church’s sanctuary. But this painting had one striking feature: the choice to depict the mother Mary and Baby Jesus as Black people.

Standing on a peaceful blue background with rays of light descending from the sky, white and pale blue cloth stands in stark contrast to St. Mary’s dark skin tone. The cool skin tone gives her an ethereal glow and the bright sky lies in contrast to her strong face and protective expression and the jagged rocks she stands upon, metaphorical for the hardship of Black Americans. The blue of her clothes ties her to the city she is from all the while she stands above the drone of the busy city behind her as she cradles the baby Jesus, who stands out due to the warm tone of his swaddle. Mary is connected to the brutality of the world all while the purity of heaven watches over and the baby Jesus will become an ember to sustain the cold soul and create change.

Rev. Mbiyu Chui giving a sermon at the Shrine of the Black Madonna in 2018. In the background is Glanton Dowdell’s 1967 painting of the Black Madonna.

Photo credit: Jeremy Brockman, “Sunday Morning in Detroit” series, 2018.

While the Shrine of the Black Madonna is not the first image most think about when analyzing the history of Black Art in Detroit, its significance cannot be denied. The very idea of a Black messiah was controversial, to say the least. Yet even as criticism came from those who tried to uphold the ‘white power structure,’ Black people– thanks in large part to various Black newspapers — began to more widely circulate and advertise images of the painting. Their efforts encouraged people to see what happened when history was taken back with the hope of inspiring future symbols of empowerment.

While there was a precedent and paintings of a colored Mother Mary the timing of this piece was during one of the most tumultuous points of a city on the brink of rebellion. The accompanying speech by the Reverend Albert Cleage declared the painting to be a “visual sermon” and done as an act of visionary empowerment. The painting was the definition of Black Power, and it inspired any who wanted to redefine their history and take back a faith that was so often weaponized against them.

Written by Jay Rodrigues

Works Cited

Angela Dillard, Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (Univ. Michigan Press, 2007)

Jawanzaa Eric Clark (ed.), Albert Cleage Jr. and the Black Madonna and Child (. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)z

Aaron Robertson, The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America. (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2024).

Niraj Warikoo, “Detroit’s Black Madonna turned church into social, political force,” Detroit Free Press, August 27, 2017. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/04/27/detroit-shrine-black-madonna/100947864/

Besheer Mohamed, Kiana Cox, Jeff Diamant, Claire Gecewicz, “A brief overview of Black religious history in the U.S.” Pew Research Center, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/a-brief-overview-of-black-religious-history-in-the-u-s/

Daniel Aldridge, Oral History interview with Jay Rodrigues, December 2024. Linked into this website.

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