Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America

Translator Robertson (Beyond Babylon) debuts with an ambitious and captivating group portrait of African American visionaries who sought to escape the “persistence of abysmal realities for black people” by setting up self-sustaining communities. Opening the narrative with a visit to his ancestral home in Promise Land, Tenn.—“one of the oldest-known settlements founded by formerly enslaved people”—Robertson then delves into the history of the migration of freedmen and their descendants (including Robertson’s grandparents) from Tennessee to Detroit, and the founding of Detroit’s Shrine of the Black Madonna church, a “countercultural mecca” that gained momentum in the 1960s when Black Detroiters displaced by gentrification were pushed into the surrounding neighborhood. Headed in the 1960s by “firebrand” pastor and Black Nationalist leader Albert Cleage Jr. (later known as Jaramogi Abebe), the church became a hub for utopian experimentation, such as Mtoto House, a “communal child-rearing” experiment based on socialist kindergartens in the Soviet Union and kibbutzim in Israel. Speaking to and researching former Mtoto House residents and other participants in Black utopian projects, as well as reflecting on his family’s “sacred” relationship with Promise Land, Robertson paints a vivid and beguiling picture of the indomitable human yearning for a safe and nurturing home. It’s a must-read. (Oct.)