The author was DeVon Cunningham's partner. Cunningham, an artist and businessman, died in July 2023.

By Rose Johnson

DeVon Cunningham spent the greater part of 1968 strapped to a scaffold eighty-five feet above the floor while painting the dome of St. Cecilia Catholic Church at Livernois and Burlingham in Southwest Detroit. DeVon’s work featured a twenty-four-foot, brown-skinned image of Jesus serving high mass, flanked on either side with multi-ethnic angels in a celestial background. The domed mural was a welcomed addition to this French Romanesque church established in 1921.

Over the years, the ethnicity of the neighborhood changed from White to Black. Local parishioners welcomed the hopeful, comforting mural and the image of what soon became known as the Black Christ. The church is

See Full Page