Louise's Reviews > The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America

It took a while to understand where this book was going. At first, with the emphasis on “Promise Land”, I thought it was about “Fruitland” style communes. Then there were long biographies of Albert Cleage Jr. and Glanton Dowdell and some of letters from the author’s father.

While I was expecting “Utopia”, I was intrigued by the bios and the author’s presentation of literature and the philosophy of the Black Christian Nationalist movement, so I read on.

Somewhere after p. 150 it comes together. Dowdell painted the “Black Madona” that became the name and symbol of the Rev. Cleage’s church and movement. The author’s father lived a short distance from the “Shrine of the Black Madonna” the headquarters of Cleage’s movement.

In the 1960’s and 70’s while black leadership was protesting and litigating for integration, Rev. Cleage and his movement were about building black self sufficient communities.

Over 30 years this movement grew. By the year 2000 they had settlements in Detroit, Atlanta and Houston. There must be at least 10 communities because Houston is referred to as Shrine #10. In the 1990’s the movement paid $10 million for 4000 acres in South Carolina for its first agricultural community.

Where the money comes from is not clear. There is reference to a “mission group” that travels the US raising money. At one point it is said they were getting too old to stand on street corners. The young people in Detroit are said to have car washes and other typical fund raising means. None of this seems like enough for the investments in property. Maybe the people who live there work and turn over their pay.

There is some description of the Detroit Shrine, particularly its youth group and a program where young children spend week nights at the shrine and it is seen that they are well fed and attend school. Rev. Cleage holds services and gives sermons. Does this take place at the other shrines?

There are no metrics where you can get a feel for how many people live at these shrines or how residents recruited. Does the movement own whole buildings or just “wings” or “floors”. How do the members interact? Do they eat together? Do they have clergy?

The future of this movement is unclear. It has changed somewhat with the times, but young people do not want to cloister… they want to explore the world. Some of the shrines are being sold. They are not sure what to do with the agricultural community, “Beulah Land.”

While there are B&W photos, mostly of paintings, they are not labeled. Only 1 is by Dowdell, and it is not related the movement. The others are credited to Stacy McIntyre.

By placement, I wonder if the photo on p. 119 is McIntyre’s rendering of Dowdell's “Black Madonna”. On p. 295, the first page of the chapter called “Shrines” is a picture (by McIntyre) of a very large apartment building. Is this owned by the movement? Are they all this big?

It is not clear how the painting on the book's cover relates to the movement.

Aaron Robertson’s does a great job in presenting the main people and connecting this movement to academic writing in religion literature and sociology. His writing style is impressionistic somewhat like that of Ta Nehisi Coates which made it hard for me to read.

While I was looking for more concrete information, Robertson brings together a lot of material that could be lost without studies like this.