Blog Post #5

            The Essence interview, “Conversation Ida Lewis and Reverend Albert B. Cleage, Jr.,” showed the true intersection of faith and activism within the Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately, Rev. Cleage, who was a historic black national pastor and militant minister leader, uniquely combined Black Christian theology and Liberation theology to draw his historical analysis of Jesus Christ. According to Reverend Earle Fisher, Rev. Cleage proved the impracticality of the separation between Church and State by critiquing and challenging the universal conception among Christianity that Jesus Christ was a white Messiah. Rev. Cleage framed his ministry around Afro-centric ideals and dedicated his church to Jesus Christ, the Black Messiah. During his interview with Lewis, Rev. Cleage claimed, “Jesus Christ was a Black Messiah. This is a historical fact. He was a nationalist, a revolutionary black leader determined to liberate his people – a nonwhite people – from the rule of a white Gentile nation, Rome” (Rev. Cleage 22). By considered Jesus Christ – the deemed Black Messiah, the anointed one to lead individuals out of bondage, and the political king – Rev. Cleage showed the intersection of spirituality, scholarship, and social activism. Rev. Fisher branded Rev. Cleage as both a minister and a black liberationist because Rev. Cleage thought nothing was more sacred to God than the liberation of black people, because God lived under the rule of Romans – or white Europeans – as a black. The rediscovery of the Black Messiah allowed him to reason there was no true separation of Church and State because Jesus Christ was crucified, which is an execution by the state. Since Rev. Cleage had a nationalistic view of Christianity, he shifted the image of Jesus Christ from the lord and savior to a political revolutionary and proved faith and activism were meshed. Also, his nationalistic view offered the Church as a black revolution or a way to discover a new black identity by “[throwing] off the shackles of self-hate and [building] a totally new, positive self-image” (Rev. Cleage 24). Essentially, Rev. Cleage believed God was a liberator and Jesus Christ, the Black Messiah, was a political revolutionary.

By criticizing the unjust structure among American society that allowed one group (the white population) to maintain a monopoly and leave the other group (the black population) with no power, Rev. Cleage questioned the reality of whether Christianity was really a white mans religion since Jesus Christ was it’s founder. Rev. Cleage saw the oppression of African Americans as an injustice and not aligned with the liberation and freedom promoted by Christianity. Also, Rev. Fisher touched on the idea of the “holy hypocrisy” rooted in Christianity, because the faith of loving your neighbor as yourself would not lead to oppression and inequality. According to Rev. Cleage, African Americans needed to do any means possible to fundamentally change the structure of society to create equality and get the disempowered population to achieve power and mutual negotiation with the powerful population.