Albert Cleage

Personal

Vocation

Traits

American Christian religious leader, political candidate, newspaper publisher, political organizer, and author. Cleage's book The Black Messiah, which depicted Jesus as a black revolutionary leader, was published in 1968. Cleage thought it was important to change the idea of a "white" Jesus to a "black" Jesus to help the African-American population. He founded the prominent African-American bookstore Shrine of the Black Madonna Church and Cultural Centers in Detroit, Michigan and Atlanta, Georgia. Cleage, who changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman in the early 1970s, played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement in Detroit during the 1960s and 1970s. He became increasingly involved with Black Nationalism during the 1970s, rejecting many of the core principles of racial integration. He founded a church-owned farm, Beulah Land, in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, and spent most of his last years there. He was the father of writer Pearl Cleage. He died on 20 February 2000, aged 88, while visiting Beulah Land, his church's new farm. Link to Wikipedia biography