The Black Madonna

A sumptuous, multi-layered manifesto on the adoration of the Sacred Black Feminine, Christena Cleveland´s The Black Madonna invites the reader onto a literary pilgrimage to meet Black Madonnas of the world. This book reminds those who are under-mothered that Black Madonna has always been with us, nourishing us through her sacred womb. It is a triumphant prayer pronouncing the ever-loving, ever-compassionate ability of Black Madonna to replenish, give us breath, protect, soothe pain, and ensure our freedom once we come to her. In a world that is tearing at its seams, Cleveland insists that it is the love of Black Madonna that will save us all.

Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, Ph.D., professor of African diasporic literature at Long Island University and author of Finding La Negrita

Christena Cleveland has journeyed courageously into the depths of healing and returned with a map forged from her own evolution. In The Black Madonna, she places powerful cartographic tools in our hands, inviting us to chart our own paths toward spiritual liberation in the company of the sacred Black feminine. Cleveland’s work has always been impactful; here, it is lush, lyrical, and profoundly transformative.

Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, professor of practical theology and pastoral care at Columbia Theological Seminary and author of Too Heavy a Yoke

The Black Madonna is a gift to anyone craving a divine feminine spirituality—but especially to ‘under-mothered’ Black women, socialized to cast our own needs aside and nurture everyone else. As Black women navigate transgenerational burdens—enslavement, white supremacy, misogynoir—we find in Black Madonna not only solace but our own holiness as well. In the tradition of bell hooks, who longed for Black liberation via the sacred Black feminine, Christena Cleveland calls readers to unshackle themselves from religions of domination. Whether tracing history or describing personal encounters, Cleveland’s book is a revelation—one that Black people, too often denigrated and devalued, sorely need.

Nadra Nittle, author of bell hooks’ Spiritual Vision

Christena Cleveland has written a revolutionary, indispensable, brilliant, and achingly original book. She has opened us to the love field of the Black Madonna in a way that restores us to our original inheritance and divine presence in life. Cleveland’s work will permanently transform our understanding and help us birth ourselves in the middle of this global dark night into midwives of the Black Madonna’s reality of justice and love.

Andrew Harvey, author of The Magdalene Revolution

Throughout this luminous love song to Black Madonna, Christena Cleveland blesses Blackness as holy and femininity as divine. Everyone is invited to this feast of mystical subversion and embodied adoration. Through richly textured stories, intimate personal accounts, and beautifully written reflections, Cleveland’s wisdom shines, lighting our way to a personal encounter with the Mother of us all, placing in our hands the tools we need to mend our broken hearts and make a meaningful contribution to healing the broken heart of the world.

Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy and Ordinary Mysticism

I count this among the most important, substantive, and insightful books ever written on the Black Madonna. It represents a new stage in Marian theology, and appropriately it comes from the pen of a Black woman who is eager to move beyond a stale, flat, exclusively white, patriarchal version of God. Read this book and be prepared to welcome the divine feminine into your soul, body, and spirit and into humanity’s collective history once again.

Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, author of 44 books, including Original Blessing and One River, Many Wells

The Black Madonna is a bold, unsettling challenge to a Christianity that has grown too comfortable with narrow images of God. In this moment, when old powers are finding new ways to oppress and exclude, Christena Cleveland’s work pushes the reader to enter into a more expansive imagining of the divine and who we—especially those of us who are Black women—are in relation to that divinity. Cleveland’s writing is profound, beautiful, and brave.

Chine McDonald, author of Unmaking Mary

Dr. Christena Cleveland’s warm experience and understanding of Black Madonna pulls no punches! Her rich and true communion imparts a bold love that much of the world is not allowed to know. Offering inspiration that manufactured, soulless gods could never, this book of properly seasoned medicine is a feast for the spirit. Readers of all walks will be resuscitated with hope and companionship, invited to hold joy and pain together with Her hands in a sacred bundle, while conjuring a future of kinship among us rowdy fugitives fleeing weaponized religion.

Pixie Lighthorse, author of The Wound Makes the Medicine