Shrine of the Black Madonna, No. 7

Black Liberation Theology

In 1977, a former grocery store building in the Northside Neighborhood was converted into a church called the Shrine of the Black Madonna. The local congregation adopted the theological platform of the Black Christian Nationalist Church, a politically and socially-centered sect of Black Protestantism established by the Detroit native Rev. Albert B. Cleage (1911-2000) in 1967.

By the late 1960s, after years of working within the civil rights movement, Cleage began to shift his emphasis away from the more traditional tactics and strategies of integrationist leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Rather than forming interracial coalitions to protest racial inequalities, Cleage viewed the solutions to U.S. racism through a Pan-African and Black Separatist lens, one that concentrated more on black self-development and economic determinism than social integration. Cleage, who later changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, believed that Jesus was black, and that followers should strive to dictate their destinies by the creation of black-controlled businesses, schools and arts. In addition to Detroit and Kalamazoo, separate congregations were established in Atlanta and Houston. In 1970, the church name was changed to Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. The Cleage family also had ties to Kalamazoo. After Albert’s accomplished father completed medical school in 1911, the family moved from Indianapolis to Kalamazoo, living in a house on N. Cooley Street before eventually relocating to Detroit.

“We want to make the church relevant to the daily struggle of the people to show them that they must deal with what they have here and now and not wait to get to heaven to have things better.”

“We have to start building things for ourselves, schools, churches, hospitals and any other institutions that we need as a people to survive.”

–Rev. James B. Harris, 18 August 1977

The Kalamazoo congregation was located at 1301 N. Burdick Street, formerly a Harding’s market. Led by Rev. James B. Harris and Rev. Daniel Kitt, the church featured a “cultural center” that sold crafts, church literature, books and African art. Harris told the newspaper shortly after opening that he believed the church would succeed due to the number of interested college students who comprised a part of the small congregation. The church’s local activities appear to have dissolved around 1986, when another church congregation moved into the building.

Written by Ryan Gage, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, February 2025