The Crucified City: Detroit as a Black Christ Figure

Abstract

The racial and political climate of the city of Detroit featured some of the worse incidents of racial violence and political strife for black residents of the city in the twentieth century. Conversely, the city also served as the hotbed for Black self-determination, black political agency, and community empowerment. Does the layered history of the triumph and tragedy of black life in twentieth-century Detroit have a metaphoric connection with the features of the Black Crucified Christ? What are the connections and disjunctures of Cleage’s revolutionary black Messiah and the racial and political events of twentieth-century Detroit? This chapter examines the city of Detroit as text and not just geography.