I saved this article from the Detroit Free Press years ago during the 1980s, because my grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr was one of the founding doctors of Dunbar Hospital and the article featured my aunt and cousins. By August 2014, Dunbar was being auctioned for unpaid taxes, after being closed up for years. I should have written the date on it. Click each article to enlarge so that you can read.
Dr. Ernest Martin, Warren Evans, Anna Cleage Shreve and her daughter Dr. Maria Shreve Benaim.
And here is an article from The Michigan Citizen about the Dunbar Hospital being saved. Let’s hope something positive is done with it now. Saving the Dunbar.
My grandfather Mershell Graham holding little Mershell and my aunt Mary V. They are sitting outside of the Conservatory on Detroit’s island park, Belle Isle. The photo is dated 1925. Usually my mother and her sister had their hair cut short but in this and a few other pictures they have braids.
On Belle Isle. My grandmother Fannie, Mary V, my mother Doris, Mershell – who looks like he has his arm bandaged. This photo is dated 1926.A photo of the Belle Isle Conservatory taken by Maya, Mershell Grahams 2X great granddaughter August 2014.
During the 1950s, my father’s Central Congregational Church had a very active youth program. In 1955, when these photographs of the modern dance group were taken, the church was meeting at Crossman School and all activities were taking place in the parsonage at 2254 Chicago Blvd. As always, click on images to enlarge.
Flyer for political rally. – click all images to enlarge.
BLACK POWER POTENTIAL: Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture, right at mic) endorsing the political candidacies of law student Kenneth V. Cockrel, Sr. (left of Carmichael) and Shrine of the Black Madonna founder Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. (later Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, fourth from left, hands in pockets), Jeffries Projects, Detroit, July 30, 1966. PHIL WEBB PHOTO/THE DETROIT NEWS. (See link to article this photo accompanied at the end of this post.)
Another News photograph from the rally. Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., Leontine Smith, Oscar Hand, Stokely Carmichael.
Below is a newsletter from the Cleage for Congress campaign.
Unfortunately neither my father or Ken Cockrel won. I remember passing out campaign literature at Jefferies Projects all day with Jim, now my husband, and attending Ken Cockrel’s “Victory Party ” that night in a flat on Wayne State University’s campus. I just remember it as being almost devoid of furniture and dusty. Jim and General Baker gave me a ride home after midnight where I found that my father, who was supposed to tell my mother that I was going to the party and would be late, got involved in his own after election activities and forgot. Talk about talking fast. I was 20 years old.
To bring history back to the present, read The Roots and Responsibility of Black Power – a reprint in The Michigan Citizen of remarks by historian Paul Lee made at the Detroit City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 3, 2012. He wasaddressing the takeover of the government of the majority-Black city of Detroit by Michigan’s Republican governor. He appealed to their sense of history, to the struggle that Detroiters had gone through in the past to gain political power. The Council voted to turn the city over to a manager appointed by the governor.
My grandparents – Albert B. Cleage & Pearl D. Reed in 1909.
For this year’s April A-Z Challenge I will be blogging everyday using items taken from the letters written by my grandfather to my grandmother from 1907 to 1912, starting with “A” and moving right through the alphabet to “Z” during April.
Would like to see you Thursday afternoon.
Detroit 9/14/09
Dear Pearl,
I expect to arrive in Indianapolis Thursday morning and if it will be possible for me to see you any where at anytime before Sabbath write me at #910 Fayett St. – Albert
Title: Floral Clock at Gladwin Park, Detroit, Mich. Caption on back: This Floral Clock is located at Gladwin Park, which contains 75 acres. Here also is the water pumping station were seventy-three million gallons of water are pumped daily for Detroit’s supply. The Clock is run by water power.
“This park — which still exists today but is no longer open to the public — would eventually encompass 110 acres with swimming and picnic areas, play equipment like swings and teeter-totters, baseball diamonds, even a library. It also was a popular place for fishermen. At the turn of the 20th Century, the park also had two islands, three bridges, a small wading lagoon and a winding canal where rowboats could enter the park,” “The First 300 Years” says. “Visitors strolled along pathways lined with chestnut trees, intricately landscaped shrubbery and floral displays,” it continues. Another beloved attraction was a clock near the entrance that was made of flowers and run off water pressure.” Water Works Park Tower – Historic Detroit
When I saw the prompt, I immediately thought of some photos of a building in Detroit that my uncle Henry Cleage took. I found them in the first place I looked (amazingly). They aren’t labeled or dated but looking at a few old Detroit buildings I found they are of the old County Building. I would date them around 1950 from the people and cars. These are only a few of the many. Court was held in the building and Henry was a lawyer. Perhaps he had some cases there.
Old Detroit County Building
“The cornerstone was laid Oct. 20, 1897, in a ceremony that the Detroit Free Press called at the time “simple but impressive.” Under a headline in capital letters proclaiming, “It is laid!”, the Free Press wrote that it had rained all morning the day of the ceremony, but just at 2 p.m., as officials were gathering at Old City Hall, the sun broke and the clouds parted. A band led the procession down Cadillac Square to a platform decked out in American flags in front of the county building, where Judge Edgar O. Durfee had the honor of laying the cornerstone. Judge Robert E. Frazer gave what the Free Press called a “stirring address,” and Mayor William C. Maybury also participated.” Go to Old Wayne County Building – Historic Detroit to read a detailed history of the Old County Building.
“One of the building’s most prominent features is the pair of large sculptures flanking its center tower and portico. The copper sculptures are known as quadrigae, a Roman chariot drawn by four horses. The pieces were done by New York sculptor J. Massey Rhind, who intended the quadrigae to symbolize progress. They feature a woman standing in a chariot led by four horses with two smaller figures on either side.” From Old Wayne County Building – Historic Detroit
Mary Vee 1940 – In front of Plymouth Congregational Church.
My mother’s sister, Mary V. Elkins, got a job at the County Building in 1940.
“June 10, 1940 — Mary Virginia has just gotten (through Jim and May) a good job at the County Bldg — God is so good to us. M.V. won high honor in her business Institute for typing and short hand.” Fannie Mae Turner Graham’s little diary.
Mary V. attended business school after she graduated from Eastern High School, then worked for awhile at her cousin’s Newspaper office until he helped her get a job in the old county building. She held the job for many years and received a proclamation from the City of Detroit for her service to the city during a Family Reunion when she was in her 80s.
Wayne County Courthouse
Old Wayne County Building could soon be allowed to seek buyers. “A Wayne County Commission committee approved a nonbinding agreement today that would settle a nearly 3-year-old lawsuit against the owners of the Old Wayne County Building and allow the owners to seek potential buyers.” From an April, 2013 article in the Detroit Free Press.
My friend, historian Paul Lee shared this today and I am sharing it with you, in remembrance of my father who died on February 20, 2000 on Beulah Land, the Shrine’s farm in South Carolina.
My father preaching about 1972.
‘A Day of Remembrance’ Salute to Jaramogi By Paul Lee
On Feb. 20, 2000, Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, formerly the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., the founder and first holy patriarch of the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOOC), returned to the ancestors at the age of 88.
Since then, the PAOCC and others who cherish the life, work and legacy of this visionary theologian, master-teacher, freedom fighter, nation-builder, father and father-figure, who on Easter Sunday 1967 proclaimed the self-determinationist creed of Black Christian Nationalism (BCN) to restore the African roots of Christianity and resurrect the original Israel as a “black nation within a nation,” have commemorated the anniversary of his passing as the “Day of Remembrance.”
COVENANT AND COMMITMENT
This year, I’m honored to share a rare audio recording of Jaramogi Abebe reading the original BCN Creed, his statement of the church’s sacred covenant with God and “Total Commitment” to God’s people, which he promulgated in early 1972.
From then until 2011, church members and often visitors faithfully recited it during every Sunday service at Atlanta, Ga., Beulah Land, S. C., Detroit, Flint and Kalamazoo, Mich., and Houston, Tex., and at the community and college cadres at Georgia, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania.
FROM MOVEMENT TO CHURCH TO DENOMINATION
Jaramogi Abebe read the creed at a “Black Religion and Black Revolution” symposium at Duke University, Durham, N. C., on April 8, 1972.
He was then the presiding bishop of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement, founded on March 26, 1967, when he unveiled at Central United Church of Christ, formerly Central Congregational, Glanton Dowdell’s striking nine-by-18-foot Black Madonna and child chancel mural, after which the church would be renamed in January 1968.
From Jan. 27-30, 1972, the then-Reverend Cleage served as the general chairman of the second biennial Black Christian Nationalist Convention at Shrine #1, during which the BCN Movement became the BCN Church, a new “black” denomination. When he read the creed at Duke, he neglected to change “Movement” to “Church” in the final sentence.
In July 1978, the BCN Church evolved into the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church, named in honor of the African Orthodox Church (AOC), which grew out of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). After this, “Pan African Orthodox Christian Church” replaced “Black Christian Nationalist Church” in the creed.
NEW TITLE AND NAME
Five days before the Duke appearance, Sala Andaiye (also Adams), the Detroit minister’s new secretary, advised the symposium’s organizer: “We also have given Rev. Cleage an African name, Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, and address him as Jaramogi.”
His Luo title (Jaramogi) and Amharic and Akan names (Abebe Agyeman), erroneously identified as Kiswahili by an amateur African names book, was given to him by the late Rev. George Bell, the BCN convention coordinator, who soon took the Kiswahili title Mwalimu and the Fulani and Kikuyu names Askia-Ole-Kariuki.
ORIGINAL BCN CREED
Below is the original creed read by Jaramogi Abebe (all-capitals represent the bold font used for “believe”; “INDIVIDUALISM” was capitalized in the original):
“I BELIEVE that human society stands under the judgment of one God, revealed to all and known by many names. His creative power is visible in the mysteries of the universe, in the revolutionary Holy Spirit which will not long permit men to endure injustice nor to wear the shackles of bondage, in the rage of the powerless when they struggle to be free, and in the violence and conflict which even now threaten to level the hills and the mountains.
“I BELIEVE that Jesus, the Black Messiah, was a revolutionary leader, sent by God to rebuild the Black Nation Israel and to liberate Black people from powerlessness and from the oppression, brutality, and exploitation of the white gentile world.
“I BELIEVE that the revolutionary spirit of God, embodied in the Black Messiah, is born anew in each generation and that Black Christian Nationalists constitute the living remnant of God’s chosen people in this day, and are charged by him with responsibility for the liberation of Black people.
“I BELIEVE that both my survival and my salvation depend upon my willingness to reject INDIVIDUALISM and so I commit my life to the liberation struggle of Black people and accept the values, ethics, morals and program of the Black Nation, defined by that struggle, and taught by the Black Christian Nationalist Movement.”
At the end of the recording, Jaramogi Abebe pauses, then says, “That’s a creed.” Indeed!
I started taking piano lessons when I was about seven years old. We lived on Chicago Blvd. in the parsonage. Mrs. Fowler was our teacher. I remember her as a stern older woman who, according to my cousin, sometimes smashed her fingers on the keys when she kept making mistakes. I think of the room with the piano as the “Morning Room”. Maybe that’s what my mother called it. There was wall paper with fruit on it. My music book was “Teaching Little Fingers to Play” and I learned 3 note pieces with words like “Here we go, up a row, to a birthday party.” When played in a different order it became the piece “Dolly dear, Sandman’s here. Soon you will be sleeping.” I must have practiced between lessons because I remember being used as a good example to my cousin Barbara one time. The piano must have belonged to the church because when we moved, it stayed there.
The piano I took lessons on behind Henry playing the cello.
Several years later we were living in the upper flat on Calvert. I told my mother I wanted to take piano lessons again. She bought the used upright piano in the photo above. We all signed it on the inside of the flap you rest the music on and raise to get at the insides. Our new teacher was Mr. Manderville, the church choir director at that time. He was my parents age and went in more for mean, sarcastic remarks as opposed to banging your fingers on the keyboard. I wanted to play “Comin’ Through The Rye” but he wouldn’t assign it and, for unknown reasons, I didn’t just learn it on my own time.
The only piece I remember by name was “The Wild Horseman”. I remember it as a complex piece that I played exceptionally well. Sort of like this.
Well, maybe I wasn’t quite that good, but in my memory, I am every bit as good. Eventually I told my mother I didn’t want to take piano lessons any more. She was not happy with that and mentioned buying the piano at my request so I could take lessons. She did let me stop. My mother played the piano much better than I ever did. She played it often after that. Pieces of classical music she played on the record player and those she played on the piano have become confused in my mind now. I will have to ask my sister what she remembers.
Another part of the prompt is pictures within the picture. You will notice three pictures on the wall and one of my sister and me on the piano, in my photo above.
As Christmas approaches, I remember my father’s sermons from that time of year. Here is the Sunday Bulletin for Sunday, December 11, 1966, the sermon notes, a flyer for an evening program held the same day and one of the songs sung by the Choir that day at Central United Church of Christ, Detroit. And right beneath this paragraph, the audio of the actual sermon.
In St. Antoine the snow and sleet Whiten and glaze the drab old street And make the snow-clad houses gleam Like crystal castles in a dream. There, many swarthy people dwell; To some, ’tis heaven, to others, hell! To me the street seems like a movie stage Where Negros play and stars engage. They laugh and love and dance and sing While waiting the return of spring. Some drown their heart-aches deep In winter time on St. Antoine.
There, on the gutters frozen brink A dope-fiend lies, with eyes that blink And from a neighboring cabaret come sounds of song and music gay. At windows, tapping, here and there, Sit dusky maidens young and fair, With painted cheeks and brazen eyes. and silk clad legs crossed to the thigh Upon the icy pavements wide, Gay brown-faced children laugh and slide While tawny men in shiny cars Drive up and down the street like czars.
Into a church across the way There goes a bridal party gay. While down the street like a prairie-fire, Dash a bandit car and a cruising flyer. Around the corner whirls a truck, An old coal-peddler’s horse is struck; The horse falls on the frozen ground, The dark blood spouting from its wound. A motley crowd runs to the scene; A woman old, from shoulders lean, Unwraps a quilt her hands have pieced And spreads it o’er the shivering beast.
Among the swarthy folk who pass Along the slippery street of glass, Are some in furs and some in rags; Lovely women, wretched hags, White-haired migrants from the South; Some wrapped in blankets, pipes in mouth; Some smile while others seem to shiver, As though they long for Swanee River; But though they dream with tear wet eyes Of cotton-fields and sunny skies. They much prefer the heaven and hell On St Antoine, where free men dwell.
******
James Edward McCall
James Edward McCall was my Grandmother Fannie Turner Graham’s first cousin. He was a poet and a publisher. He lost his sight due to illness while a medical student at Howard University. He and his family migrated from Montgomery Alabama to Detroit Michigan about 1923.
You can read more about Dunbar Hospital in previous posts at these links A Speech on the Graduation of the first class of nurses, Births, Deaths, Doctors and Detroit, Part 2, Dunbar Hospital 1922 and 2014. You can read about this building being auctioned in September 2014 here Detroit’s first black hospital hits auction…
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