The Black Christ Domed Ceiling Mural--Detroit Art Treasure in Peril

The Black Christ by DeVon Cunningham. Notice the water damage on Jesus' robe and the mold around the edges of the mural.

In 1969, Detroit artist DeVon Cunningham achieved national recognition when he painted the Black Christ inside the dome of St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church on Detroit’s Westside. This French Romanesque church was built in 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression when the parish congregants were mostly White.

After the second world war, White flight to the suburbs began changing the ethnicity of the neighborhood from White to mostly Black. The church's name was changed in 2013 to Charles Lawanga Parish to reflect the shift in ethnicity of the neighborhood.

In 1968, Parish priest Father Raymond Ellis responded to a protest demonstration in 1968 of St. Cecilia’s high school students who no longer accepted the traditional blonde, blue-eyed, light-skinned Jesus they saw in their religious literature and statuary. Father Ellis commissioned local artist and parish member DeVon Cunningham to paint a mural of a Black Christ on the dome above the altar. Parishioners welcomed the hopeful, comforting mural with open arms.

The mural featured a twenty-four-foot, brown-skinned image of Jesus flanked by six angels serving High Mass—one is Native American, another is Asian, two are White, and two are Black, set against a celestial background. The figures painted at the bottom of the mural along the cloud line represent notable church and historic figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The size and splendor of the mural is awe-inspiring.

Working eighty-five feet above the altar, Cunningham, who had a fear of heights, was strapped to a scaffold for eight months to complete the work. The original church architect who designed St. Cecilia was recruited to geometrically calculate the correct proportions of the figures due to the curvature of the dome.

A national controversy erupted when an image of the Black Christ appeared on the cover of Ebony magazine in March of 1969. The very idea of a Black Christ shook many White American Christians to the foundations of their faith.

Responding to local criticism, parish priest Father Ellis explained in a Detroit Free Press interview that “Black parishioners have a legitimate complaint when they walk into a church to worship and everything is White. Christianity forces people to accept the ethnocentrism of Western European culture. The historical Jesus was Hebrew, a Jew from the Middle East. He may have had dark skin; he might have been fair-skinned. But Christ is the head of the church, he is God, and he is any color people want him to be.”

The widespread belief in the United States of a White Christ can be traced to 1924, when commercial illustrator Warner Sallman made a charcoal sketch of Jesus for his church. Sixteen years later in 1940, Sallman believed he had a moment of divine inspiration when he painted his sketch into an oil painting for an Evangelical magazine. The painting was named Head of Christ. 

From there, the Gospel Trumpet Company, the publishing arm of the Church of God, bought the rights and widely published various sized lithographic images of Sallman’s painting for sale throughout the Southern United States, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, and the USO. Wallet sized versions were handed out to soldiers during World War II.

Head of Christ by Warner Sallman

After the war, Christian groups began to widely distribute the image publicly. During the Cold War, one Lutheran spokesperson proclaimed, “There ought to be ‘card-carrying Christians’ to counter the effect of ‘card-carrying Communists’.” In midcentury America, the image was widely distributed as a reaction to the Red Scare and the threat of Godless atheism.

The Face of Christ painting was the accepted depiction of Jesus for many Americans. It has been reproduced well over 500 million times in portraits, prayer and mass cards, illustrations in Bibles, Sunday school literature, church bulletins and calendars, posters, buttons, and bumper stickers, deeply etching it into the imaginations of true believers. Sallman’s painting depicted a light-haired, pale-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus with Nordic features. After all, Sallman was the son of Scandinavian immigrants.

Most White Americans could not accept the idea of an ethnic Jesus despite the many works of art that have appeared since antiquity to modern times. When DeVon Cunningham painted his mural of the Black Christ, he had no intention of making a political statement or creating an incident.

Twenty-five years later, the Cunningham mural once again became a topic of controversy when the New York Times ran an article on Christmas Day in 1994 entitled “Just Who Was Jesus?" Four images of Jesus ran with the article, The Redeemer, a mosaic from the 12th century; Christ by Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck in the 17th century; the Head of Christ by Warner E. Sallman in 1940, and the Black Christ by DeVon Cunningham in 1969.

Cunningham’s Black Christ gained international prominence again in 2009 when the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI sent out Christmas cards with four depictions of Christ’s image, three from antiquity and the fourth being the Black Christ by DeVon Cunningham, the only living artist to be so honored. DeVon Cunningham passed away on July 31, 2023, at the age of eighty-eight.

DeVon Cunningham

In 2024, parishioners began noticing Jesus’ robe was becoming discolored from a leak in the roof. Other parts of the mural were also showing moisture, mold, and mildew damage, most notably around the edges of the dome. Because of other expensive repairs necessary to restore the church building, the Archdiocese of Detroit made the difficult decision to close the parish. The last mass held in Charles Lawanga Parish was on October 12, 2025.

It would be a shame for Detroit to lose such an acclaimed work of religious art, but the die is cast. Ways are being explored to commemorate the mural photographically and restore it digitally to reveal and preserve its full grandeur. The hope is that the mural will be enshrined in an exhibit in one of the city’s fine museums for future generations to appreciate this great work and the artist who created it.

DeVon Cunningham Short Bio

DeVon Cunningham website

Docuartist DeVon Cunningham--a Detroit Art Treasure--has Left this Vale of Tears

DeVon Cunningham and his partner Rose Johnson

Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on February 21, 1935, DeVon Cunningham began his art training at the tender age of eleven when he won a scholarship to the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana. Part of his training was a two-week, all expenses paid seminar to study in Italy.

He continued his art training at the Detroit Center for Creative Studies and the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center. Cunningham went on to complete a bachelor's degree from the Detroit Institute of Technology and a master's degree from Wayne State University.

While he was working as a community outreach and public relations executive for Detroit Edison, DeVon was painting. Over his long career, DeVon's paintings have appeared in many galleries including eleven one-man shows, and his work hangs in many private and public art collections. His work is digitally archived and indexed in the catalog for the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute.

In 1969, DeVon Cunningham achieved national recognition when he painted the mural of the Black Christ on the dome of St. Cecelia Catholic church at Livernois and Burlingame in Detroit. This work featured a twenty-four-foot, brown-skinned image of Jesus with six multiethnic angels beside him serving high mass. The church's parishioners were mostly African Americans from the neighborhood. The mural was a welcomed addition to this French Romanesque church built in 1930 before the ethnicity of the neighborhood changed.

A national controversy erupted when the mural appeared on the cover of Ebony magazine in March 1969. Twenty-five years later on December 25th, 1994, the mural once again became the topic of controversy when the New York Times featured the church mural on Christmas Day. Reverend Raymond Ellis, rector of St. Cecelia's, responded to the criticism in a Detroit Free Press interview.

"Black parishioners have a legitimate complaint when they walk into a church to worship and everything is white. Christianity forces people to accept Western European culture.

"The historical Christ was Hebrew, a Jew from the Middle East. He might have had dark skin; he might have been fair. But Christ is the head of the church, he is God, and he is any color people want him to be."

Cunningham's commissioned portraits of prominent Detroit community leaders include Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg, a WCHB radio personality active in Detroit's African American community; Coleman Young, the city's first black mayor; Abe Burnstein, Detroit's reputed Purple Gang boss during Prohibition; and many others.

The most mysterious portrait Cunningham has painted is of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. It was unveiled at Gordy's Boston-Edison mansion as a birthday present from his sister Anna Gordy Gaye--the wife of singer Marvin Gaye. Berry was quite moved and lauded the painting of him dressed up like Napoleon. Somewhere along the line, someone suggested that it might not be a compliment to be compared to Napoleon, and the painting disappeared. (More on that story appears in the link at the end of this post.)

Cunningham's portraits gave way to what he calls docuart that informs, instructs, and involves the viewer. His work combines symbolism with cultural iconography that leaves the viewer with a montage of images to ponder. DeVon's art not only appeals to the eye but also to the mind.

DeVon's jazz musician series typifies much of his later work. Historically, Detroit was instrumental in the 1920s through the 1950s for providing African American jazz and blues musicians venues to perform and make a living through their music. To document the historic relationship of Jews and African Americans, Cunningham painted legendary performers like Theolonius Monk, Louie Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis, who performed in Detroit's legendary nightclubs owned by Jewish impresarios who hired Black acts when other venue bookers would not.

Billie Holiday docuart

 

DeVon Cunningham has produced significant art that remains relevant in our changing times. The Spill the Honey foundation commissioned a series of paintings that emphasizes the shared legacy of Jewish people and African Americans seeking historical truth and social justice through educational and artistic programs. The theme of Cunningham's last body of work deals with the environment and the pollinators--both endangered.

Mr. Cunningham passed away at 1:00 am Monday morning, July 31st at the age of eighty-eight after complications from a prolonged illness. Only two weeks before, DeVon and Rose Johnson went to Cafe D'Mongo's in downtown Detroit for his last outing where he enjoyed meeting with some of his fans, my wife Sue and I among them.

Berry Gordy's Lost Portrait