RBG Blakademics September, 2010
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Clarke, John Henrik (1915-1998)
John Henrik Clarke, historian, black nationalist andPan-Africanist, was a pioneer in the formation ofAfricana studies in the United States. Principally aself-trained historian, Clarke dedicated his life tocorrecting what he argued was the prevailing view thatpeople of Africa and of African decent had no historyworthy of study. Over the span of his career Clarkebecame one of the most respected historians ofAfrican and African American history.
Clarke was born on New Year’s Day, 1915,
in UnionSprings, Alabama. He described his father as a
“brooding, landless sharecropper,” who struggled to
earn enough money to purchase his own farm, and hismother as a domestic.
Clarke’s mother Willie Ella
(Mays) Clarke died in 1922, when he was about sevenyears old.In 1932 Clarke left the South at age eighteen and he traveled by boxcar to Chicago. Hethen migrated to New York City where he came under the tutelage of noted scholarArthur A. Schomburg.
While in New York City’s Harlem, Clarke undertook the study of
Africa, studying its history while working full time. In 1949 the New School for SocialResearch asked Clarke to teach courses in a newly created African Studies Center.Nineteen years later Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association in 1968,and was principally responsible for the creation of the Black and Puerto Rican StudiesDepartment at Hunter College in New York City. He later lectured at Cornell Universityas a distinguished visiting Professor of African history.Clarke numerous works include
A New Approach to African History
(1967),
African People in World History
(1993), and
The Boy Who Painted Jesus Black
(1975). He diedin New York City in 1998.
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Cleage, Albert, Jr. (Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman)(1911-2000)
Albert Cleage, jr., or JaramogiAbebe Agyeman, Black Nationalistand civil rights activist, was one ofthe most prominent black religiousleaders in America. Agyemenpreached a form of nationalismwithin the black community thatstressed economic self-sufficiencyand separation that relied on areligious awakening among blackpeople.Albert Cleage, Jr. was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 13, 1911. Cleagegraduated from Wayne State University in 1937, earning a B.A. in sociology, and a M.A.in Divinity from Oberlin School of Theology in 1943. Cleage married Doris Graham andhad two daughters. Cleage and Graham later divorced in 1955. Cleage ran forgovernor of Michigan in 1962 under the Freedom Now Party, and was a candidate inthe Democratic primary for U.S. Representative from Michigan, 13th District, in 1966.Cleage later changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman.His most recognized work was the
Black Messiah
(1968). In Messiah, Agyeman arguedthat Jesus was a black revolutionary who sough
t to lead a “Black Nation” to freedom.Agyeman believed the emergence of nationalist movements of the world’s coloredmajority would reveal the historic truth that Jesus was the “non
-white leader of a non-white people struggling for national liberation aga
inst the rule of a white nation, Rome.”
Agyeman understood the power of the church within the black community and thoughtthe re-
orientation from a “white” Jesus to a “black” Jesus would be a necessary step in
the spiritual liberation of black America. S
ome believe the basis of Agyeman’s spiritualteachings was based on the theology rooted in Robert Young’s
Ethiopian Manifesto
(1829).In 1967 Agyeman unveiled the portrait of the Black Madonna. He went on to found andlead the Pan African Orthodox Church, which was part of the Black Christian NationalistMovement. This nationalist movement had 50,000 members nationwide.
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