At its peak, the Shrine — renamed in 1978 as the Shrine of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church — had eight churches in Michigan, five of them in Detroit.

In 1967, the Shrine of Black Madonna commissioned him to paint a mural of a Black Madonna and child that transformed the way many members of the Shrine saw themselves.

Walker has been a part of the Shrine of the Black Madonna since 1990 and serves as an associate pastor, sharing the church’s teachings in Houston, Atlanta, and throughout South Carolina.

Aaron Robertson, pictured here, says that “one of the ways that some of the people in Cleage’s church were able to start to imagine a different life for themselves was through this beautiful mural ...

In 1967, the Shrine of Black Madonna commissioned him to paint a mural of a Black Madonna and child that transformed the way many members of the Shrine saw themselves.