AN
UNVEILING MAKES HISTORY
Perhaps the biggest and most joyful event ever to take place in St. Cecilia's Church, the unveiling of the Black Christ, took place on a beautiful Autumn day at the seven o'clock evening service on the Feast of St. Cecilia, Friday, November 22nd, 1968. First-comers arrived as early as five o'clock in the afternoon, Channels 4 and 50 were given last minute television interviews. Radio commentators had played up the coming event. Despite warnings, St. Cecilia's could not have prepared for the throngs that eventually crowded in. Extra chairs brought over in haste from the Activities Building were promptly filled and people soon spilled up the aisle and crowded shoulder to shoulder at the rear of the church.
The force of the event, a sense of splendid history in the making, seemed to sweep up the three choirs and the congregation as they, accompanied by Anderson White's forty-piece orchestra and two church organs, filled the high vaults of St. Cecilia's with such music as had never been heard before.
Brief introductory remarks by Father Ellis were followed by the darkening of the church. Mercy high school Choir from the loft began to sing, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." On the curved apse dome, hidden lights directed on the unveiled face of the Christ were slowly brought up and the compassionate features became clear, then wider lighting revealed the tall robed figure, the angels below to each side and surrounding panorama.
As described by Alex Poinsett in the March, 1969, issue of Ebony magazine, which had the face of St. Cecilia's Black Christ on it's cover, "Black, White, Indian, and Chinese angels hover in the massive mural seventy-five feet overhead. Swirling about them are storm clouds from which peak...GREATS... Mahatma Gandhi and Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., the two Kennedy brothers and Pope John XXIII. English and Swahili declarations of 'Freedom!' and 'We Shall Overcome!' neon-light the heavens. Over here is a firing squad and a slave leashed to his master. But over there is a clenched fist. An Atlas moon rocket trembles...on it's launching pad, its... majesty in shiny contrast to the nearby grime-encrusted skyscrapers of Detroit. Towering... over all the symbolism is a purple-robed, twenty-four foot portrayal of Christ - not as a white man - but as the black ruler of the Universe."
Continued
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