Memoir of a Black Christian Nationalist: Seeds of Liberation

Memoir of a Black Christian Nationalist

Seeds of Liberation

Shelley McIntosh, EdD

Copyright © 2021 Shelley McIntosh

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

To contact the author for media engagements or for signed copies, email [email protected]

Ebook - 978-1-954414-17-4

Hardback - 978-1-954414-18-1

Paperback - 978-1-954414-19-8

Interior design and cover design: Deborah Perdue www.illuminationgraphics.com

Editor: Margaret A. Harrell

www.margaretharrell.com

BLB—Berean Literal Bible, © 2016 Berean Bible. Used by Permission. All rights reserved.

ESV—The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

KJV—King James Version, public domain.

NASB—New American Standard Bible, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved.

NIV—THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973,

1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

NKJV—New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

RSV—Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Late Reverend Albert B. Cleage Jr. (Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman)

Late Granddaughter, Ni’Jah Monifa

My daughter and son, Lateefah and Italo Grandsons, Dwight, David, and Italo

Love always . . .

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

I - The Black Messiah

II - Black Christian Nationalism

III - The Revolutionary Holy Spirit Is Born Anew in Each Generation

IV - The Church as Change Agent

V - Politics Are Sacred

VI - Building Counterinstitutions

VII - Communalism—Reflection of Man’s Higher Nature

VIII - The Experience of God

IX - The Community of Jesus

Appendices

Appendix A - BCN Message and Mission

Appendix B - Poetry by Jaramogi

Appendix C - BCN Covenant

Appendix D - BCN Statement of Faith

Appendix E - BCN Code

Appendix F - BCN Program

Appendix G - BCN Teaches

Appendix H - BCN Position

Appendix I - BCN Goals at Basic Training Levels

Appendix J - BCN Basic Training Pledge

References

About the Author

Acknowledgments

A special gratitude to all who struggled together, whether it was five years or thirty years. Your names are eternalized, and your works will soar in this great universe as expansive energy touching the present and the future. Feel enamored that we became a people who came out of Detroit.

To Sondai Lester and Lindiwe Lester, you are my examples of great leadership. Dr. Diane Fabu Jackson, your spiritual insight and impactful coaching sharpened my perception and self-awareness.

Publishing a book is not done alone. Thank you, Deborah Perdue of Illumination Graphics for the amazing interior and cover designs. Heartfelt appreciation to Joni Wilson for thorough and expert editing. My indebtedness to Elizabeth Atkins of Two Sisters Writing and Publishing for the redirection of my manuscript and for offering details in storytelling. To Jackie Smith of J. Merrill Publishing, much gratitude for your passion and professionalism. Because of all of you, thoughts became written words, and written words birthed a book. I am eternally grateful.

Preface

FOURTEEN HUNDRED BUILDINGS, RED ORANGE FLAMES BILLOWING toward the sky, smoldering debris, now broken and leveled, smoke settling in an eerie pall, bullets piercing the air and finding a resting place in the flesh of forty-three Black bodies, harassment by police, and occupation by 7,000 National Guard and United States Army troops; Detroit was a city rebelling against injustice in 1967. From the time Cadillac brought the first slave to Detroit in 1701 to plant crops and construct buildings to the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, Black people were subjugated by a brutal racist oppressive system. Their anger reached a climax.

Unequal housing laws crammed about 60,000 people into 460 acres in the Virginia Park neighborhood. Most lived in tiny, subdivided apartments. The Detroit Police Department was viewed as a White occupying army.

The entire city was in a state of economic and social strife: Automobile companies moved to outsourcing and technology. Thousands of unskilled Black men were permanently laid off, left with no income. Hundreds of thousands of the middle class, both Black and White, left the city by means of newly constructed freeways. These events further gutted Detroit’s vitality and left behind vacant storefronts, widespread unemployment, and impoverished despair.

Detroit was one of the many metropolitan areas across the US where White flight dramatically reduced the tax base of formerly prosperous cities. The flight caused urban blight, poverty, and racial discord.

Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets, known as STRESS, was a Detroit Police Department unit; its purpose was to reduce the crime in Detroit. In operation from 1971 until 1974, black unmarked police cars carrying four police officers, The Big Four, targeted African American men. In rapid speed, riding up on the Black men, braking to a screeching halt, all four jumping out of the police car, surrounding the suspect, and brutally handcuffing him in full view of children and the elderly was intimidating and threatening. STRESS led to the deaths of twenty-four men, twenty-two of them African American, over the course of three-and-a-half years.

Birth of the Shrines of the Black Madonna

It is out of this Black experience of racism and injustice that Reverend Albert B. Cleage Jr. (Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) founded the Shrines of the Black Madonna. His ideals were shaped by his parents, Pearl D. Cleage and Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. Both were catalysts for his activism. Pearl D. Cleage was a founder of St. John’s Presbyterian Church and the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit. She often lectured on African American history and was a member of the auxiliaries of the Iota Boule and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternities. She organized the West Side Human Relations Council in the 1930s.

Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. practiced medicine for forty-two years in the city of Detroit, sixteen of which he served on the staff at Receiving Hospital. He was a graduate of Knoxville College and the University of Indiana Medical School and a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha and Iota Boule chapter of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternities. Extremely active in the political and cultural life of Detroit, he was a charter member of Central Congregational Church, one of its most ardent financial supporters.

Dr. Cleage helped found Dunbar Hospital, Detroit’s only hospital that granted admitting privileges to Black doctors and trained African American residents. Dr. Cleage was a major figure in the Detroit medical community, even being designated as city physician by Mayor Charles Bowles in 1930. The stark awareness of Black reality began with his parents, and it became sharper as he witnessed and participated in the civil rights movement.

A Black Christian Activist

Reverend Cleage was a Christian activist. After being involved in the civil rights movement and forming friendships with leaders such as Reverend Martin L. King Jr., the Honorable Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, historians, and politicians; after publicly debating about the crisis of Black people; after speaking at numerous universities and colleges, Reverend Cleage analyzed that the only way to liberate Black people is to ground their beliefs in the historical truth about Jesus, thus making Christianity relevant to the Black man’s struggle for liberation.

In 1967, he founded the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement located at 7625 Linwood in Detroit, Michigan. It was later renamed the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. This movement was to encourage Black churches to correctly interpret Jesus’ teachings as a means to meet the social, economic, and political needs of Black people. Because of his disciplined study and affiliation with Black historians, Reverend Cleage discovered that Jesus was a Black man born of a Black mother. Her name, Mary.

In the church, Reverend Cleage installed a sixteen-foot painting of the Black Madonna Mary holding her baby Jesus, the Black Messiah. This was a strong and controversial religious statement that honored the important role of Black women. It also was a profound attempt to correct an insidious untruth about the race and life of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus was a Black Messiah born of a Black mother during the time that Israel was oppressed and persecuted by the Romans.

Reverend Cleage wrote about this in his book, The Black Messiah. The struggles of Israel coincide with Black people’s struggle today and with the Black Lives Matter movement; all fighting against racism and oppression.

The Seeds of Liberation

This is my story of being a member of the Black Christian Nationalist (BCN) Movement in the years from 1971 to 2000. I interweave the historical phases of the church’s evolution within a tapestry of my personal experiences. It is a blending of technical and creative writing done with the intent to share informatively and experientially. I intertwine my memories throughout the book to paint the canvas of how the written program is married to actual human events.

Service under the Leadership of Reverend Cleage

I served under the leadership of Reverend Cleage for thirty years, being one of those thousands of young Black people who joined the Shrines of the Black Madonna in the 1970s. Because of his constant teachings and total commitment to bring into being a self-sufficient Nation, I was one of those who experienced and witnessed him face to face. Rising through the ranks of leadership as a minister, bishop, and cardinal, I sat in his presence numerous times while learning and evolving.

I served as a group leader to children and adult groups. I preached sermons and lectured Black theology classes, taught the spiritual disciplines of yoga and meditation, and developed the children’s institute named Mtoto House, which was designed to support the spiritual, social, academic, and physical growth of children. I christened babies and performed marriages. I worked beside Reverend Cleage to develop KUA, the science of becoming what you already are. Being totally committed to the work of the church, I am one of the living witnesses of what it is like to be a Black Christian Nationalist.

I - The Black Messiah

Jesus was born to a Black Madonna. Her name was Mary.

Over the past twenty years, extensive DNA research has been conducted on the Jewish people. Studies were first done with Caucasian Jews. The DNA results indicate that Jews have a common genetic makeup, specifically a Y-chromosome haplotype that is passed down through the mother.

African Jews, who have always identified themselves as such, desired that their DNA be tested. The same Y-chromosome haplotype was found, except it was denser, linking them more directly with Judaism. Today, Jews can be identified by their common genealogy.

The Lemba Jews of Zimbabwe and the Igbo Jews of Nigeria also have this genetic makeup. They have always claimed that they are Jews. Currently, studies are being conducted on the biblical ten lost tribes of Israel, which the Lemba and the Igbo people may belong to. Historically, the ten tribes were exiled by the Assyrians, which has stirred discussions linking the US slave trade with the diaspora of millions of African Jews across the world. The original chosen people of God are Africans, whereas, European Jews are converts to Judaism. This certainly is unsettling to millions of people. Nevertheless, DNA testing is uncovering historical truth (Tamarkin).

The genealogy of Jesus is found in Matthew 1:1–17 (NIV). Verses 12–17 read as follows.

After the exile to Babylon:

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,

Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,

Abihud the father of Eliakim,

Eliakim the father of Azor,

Azor the father of Zadok,

Zadok the father of Akim,

Akim the father of Elihud,

Elihud the father of Eleazar,

Eleazar the father of Matthan,

Matthan the father of Jacob,

and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

Logically, because Jesus is a descendant of Abraham historically and genetically, Jesus was Black. He was the Messiah, the liberator, who would deliver the Jewish people from Roman oppression. The genetic connection is evidence of who he was. As important is the proof of today’s Ethiopians who are Jews and can trace their genealogy to King Solomon.

Christianity is an outgrowth of the Jewish religion based on the belief of the risen Christ and the gospel spread by Jesus’ disciples after Pentecost. As Rome was declining, the commitment and revolutionary passion of the early Christians served as motivation for Rome to convert to Christianity, specifically done with the hope that it could rebuild its empire.

Many of the Christian tenets believed and practiced today are based on misinterpretations and modifications by Roman cardinals and bishops. These can be found in the Council of Nicaea sessions. Decisions about the date to celebrate Jesus’ birth, as well as defining him as God through the concept of the Holy Trinity were debated and decided on in these meetings. Over time, the interpretation of Jesus’ life was taken out of context. Instead of his revolutionary nature being portrayed as significant, his death to save all humankind overshadowed it.

Jesus, born of a Black Madonna, makes Christianity a Black man’s religion relevant to the Black man’s struggle for liberation in today’s world. Reverend Cleage discussed this in detail in his book, The Black Messiah, first published in 1968.

II - Black Christian Nationalism

Reverend Cleage was a Christian, a Black Christian, a devout believer in Jesus. His mission was to bring Black Christians back to a more conscious understanding of their African history in order to effect positive progression as a whole; in essence, to build a Nation within a Nation with power.

A nation is a cultural-political community that is conscious of its autonomy, unity, and particular interests, potentially growing into a form of nationalism. Reverend Cleage further defined a nation as a group of people united to obtain or perpetuate their power. It is self-governing with the capacity to touch the lives of its people. Its goal is to create institutions that serve the welfare of the people. It ensures that basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing are met. It assumes the responsibilities of providing health services, education, protection, and opportunities. It supports the psychological human needs of health, happiness, and prosperity.

A nation with power explicitly means to have control over the institutional structure that governs a group’s life. Reverend Cleage’s position was that Black people are separated. Upon this systematic separation, we live within the US but are powerless. In light of this reality, Black people must be unified by laws, practices, and policies that ensure their welfare and survival; a Black Nation with power that peacefully coexists with other nations.

He discussed the new directions for the Black church in his book, Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church, first published in 1972. He wrote the following.

"At the Shrine of the Black Madonna, we recognize and admit the betrayal of the Black Church even as we struggle to redeem and transform it for the survival struggle which lies ahead. If the Black Church is to commit its resources to the Black revolution, we must develop a new Black Theology founded upon a critical re-examination of the historic foundation of the Christian faith. We know that the Israel of the Old Testament period was a Black Nation. We know that Mary and Joseph and Jesus were Black. So, Christianity is founded upon the life and teachings of a Black Messiah.

As important as the fact that Israel and Jesus were Black, is the fact that Jesus was a revolutionary leader engaged in a liberation struggle against the white gentile world. In light of these facts, the meaning of the Bible is dramatically changed and Christianity is a Black man’s religion, relevant to the Black Revolution. The Black Church must build upon this foundation.

Shrines of the Black Madonna seek to bring the Black Church back to its historic roots through the Black Christian Nationalist Church established in March of 1967."

The purpose of the Shrines of the Black Madonna coincides with the teachings of Jesus and what he believed God called him to do. Jesus’ message was the same message of the Prophet Isaiah found in the Old Testament.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn (Isaiah 61:1–2, NIV).

In Luke 4:18–19, NIV, Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor!"

Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on a group of people’s ways of life and their sovereignty. The oppressed are the downtrodden whose lives have been diminished and threatened by a brutally powerful racist system.

The Spirit of the Lord has