Icon of Resistance and Nourisher of Souls
Christena Cleveland reclaims the figure of the Black Madonna as a Divine icon and liberator. Bridging both scholarship and devotion, The Black Madonna is a decolonized, diasporic and feminine-rooted text. Each chapter brings the reader into conversation with a different embodiment of the Black Madonna, illuminating her power as a sacred symbol.

Meet Black Madonna—Mother of Abundance, Holy Insurrectionist, Our Lady of F Around and Find Out

This bold reclamation of the divine feminine offers a new vision of Black Madonna as a unifying figure of refuge, resistance, and renewal. When we are exhausted and burned out, Black Madonna invites us to surrender to her protective embrace and be revitalized by her subversive life force. When disillusionment takes hold, Black Madonna offers radical belonging—urging us to reclaim our own sacred power.

Christena Cleveland expertly blends personal experiences, global stories, and historical records to reveal the cunning colonial forces that poison our social and spiritual landscape, while illuminating our Divine Ancestor as an endless source of spiritual nourishment, liberation, and protection. Intimate invocations and empowering rituals within each chapter help you to nurture your own authentic connection with Black Madonna and feel her loving guidance through the twists and turns of life. This book is a call to mystic-activism—for all of us who are alert to injustice and fervently devoted to co-creating a world of love.