‘Tis supposedly the season to be jolly, happy and of good cheer, but the hidden truths about Jesus and his mother Mary, belie the manufactured aim of this worldwide so-called holiday. Jesus is not at the center of Christmas, but it’s “X-mas,” a fat man in a red suit, frivolity and retailers making money.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have taught that what has been falsely billed as the birthday of Jesus is really a “commercial feast of foolishness.”
Both Divine Servants of Allah (God) also taught that Jesus, though portrayed and misrepresented as a White man in paintings, biblical illustrations and media, was in fact, a Black man. This truth and reality can be proven via historical and scriptural research.
“Jesus, whether you want to believe it or not, was a man of color,” stated Minister Farrakhan. “How many of you are ready to accept Jesus as one of you?” he asked, during a historic college tour stop in Nashville, Tennessee at Jefferson St. Missionary Baptist Church on April 12, 2012.
“Jesus, his mother, Mary, was an Egyptian. Egypt is northeast Africa. Jesus said in Revelations, I am the seed of David, the root of Jesse, the bright and the morning star,” said Minister Farrakhan. Jesse was the father of David.
David was the father of Solomon, he continued, citing Bible scripture. “… and Solomon said, ‘I am Black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.’ So, if Solomon was Black, David couldn’t have been White. …,” Minister Farrakhan continued.
He added, “So, if Jesus was a Black man, and you’re looking for him to return, why did they give us the image of themselves when the Pope knows that Jesus was Black? Even Billy Graham said it years ago. … And the Pope has a Black Madonna. So, why did you make him White when you know he was Black?” he added.
In a December 2012 Final Call article by Student Minister Dr. Wesley Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam Shura Executive Council and Nation of Islam Research Group, titled, “Color struck: America’s White Jesus is a global export and false product,” he points to a 2002 article in Popular Mechanics magazine.
“From the first time Christian children settle into Sunday school classrooms, an image of Jesus Christ is etched into their minds. In North America, he is most often depicted as both taller than his disciples, lean, with long, flowing, light brown hair, fair skin and light-colored eyes.
Familiar though this image may be, it is inherently flawed. A person with these features and physical bearing would have looked very different from everyone else in the region where Jesus lived and ministered,” wrote Student Minister Wesley Muhammad quoting from the magazine.
This misrepresentation and deception was and is intentional. However, the truth has been revealed and the depiction of Jesus and his mother Mary are being more accurately portrayed.
Professor Molefi Kete Asante, Ph.D, teaches Africology at Temple University in Philadelphia. According to Professor Asante, one aim of inaccurately portraying Jesus and his mother, Mary as White was to beat down the attitude of reverence for the sacredness of the Black mother among European White people.
During a July 15, 2024 presentation on his Molefi Kete Asante Institute Lectures on YouTube Professor Asante cited scores of Black statues found in churches throughout France, documented in Emile Saillens book, “nos vierges noires” (“Our Black Virgins: Their Origins”).
Artists who created these Black Madonnas didn’t do so out of thin air, and the congregations were White, he argued. In the 12th Century, biblical scholars such as Saint Bernard and others recorded these Black Virgins, which include:
Lady of Africa at the Church of the Annunciation in Algiers and Great Lady of Austria aka Our Lady of Mariazell, a Marian shrine for pilgrimage in Austria, said Dr. Asante.
There is the Dark Lady of Heaven with a curly-haired Jesus, in Orville, Belgium and multiple different churches with Black virgins in Prague (in the Czech Republic), and in Belgium, there’s the Black Virgin of Saint Catherine’s church. The 11th-century statue was originally White but turned Black over time due to humidity, claims The Brussels Times.
“People have said, ‘Well, that statue has just been blackened by time. … What they mean is that it’s old and maybe it just got dark, but in most of the cases where people have looked at them, the clothes that they’re wearing don’t get blacker. The dress that they have is not blacker. … They’re trying to explain why are these statues Black?!” he argued.
Professor Asante provided an extensive list and explained it’s important to understand what’s occurring and to what extent, which is part fear, and that people simply don’t want to tell the truth that Mary was a Black woman and her son, Jesus, a Black man.
It’s part of the notion of the doctrine of race and White racial supremacy and the question of how to suppress the African origin of these Black symbols that are consecrated and are sacred to Europe, said Dr. Asante.
In 1798 Austria, for example, one Dark Virgin was evacuated, and by the time she was returned in 1803, she was painted White, to the consternation of the believers in the church, he said.
“Browse Black Madonnas” offers a map and images of Black Madonna’s, showing more than 180 of them from continents and countries including Europe, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
The website is authored by Ella Rozet, a former teacher of Buddhism, Christianity, and Women in Religion at the Santa Rosa Junior College located north of San Francisco.
Student Minister Abel Muhammad serves as a representative to the Latin American community for the Nation of Islam and Minister Farrakhan. He described La Virgen de Guadalupe as La Virgen Morena or La Virgen Negra, both meaning the Dark or Black Virgin, representing the Indigenous people of Central and South America.
Her appearance signaled to the people, in particular, in Meso America and Central America, that God was interested in their condition and that He was not blind to their suffering, he said.
“Because the mother in particular, Mary, the woman, who’s like a mother, she carries within her all of those maternal values. So, she represents the comfort, the love, the beauty of God as a mother over a people. And it’s not by accident that she’s a Black or a dark woman, because it’s the darker people who have suffered so much,” he explained.
Knowledge of this truth is important because, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Farrakhan teach that Jesus and Mary are a sign to the nations, representing something bigger than themselves.
Most people don’t realize God has already fulfilled what Jesus and Mary are a sign of, having been misled by the false image of a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian, contrary to scripture, Student Min. Abel Muhammad said.
“They’re looking for the wrong man, and they are disappointed and continue to suffer because right in front of them the real Jesus, and the sign of Jesus and his mother, Mary, have already been fulfilled, but it’s hiding in plain sight because we’re looking for the wrong thing,” added Student Min. Abel Muhammad.
The origination and prototype of the Black Madonna and child is an ancient story from Africa (and) Black people, said Baba Ashra Kwesi, Ph.D, a lecturer on African history, civilization, religion, and culture. The deceit in part is due to the “de-Africanizing” of the Madonna/Mary and child, by Europeans, according to Dr. Kwesi. He calls it the epitome of White supremacy.
In European images is a corruption of an ancient African spiritual story that was told thousands of years ago, and the monuments and temples are in Egypt to validate it, he said.
The impact on Black people has been White idolatry, worshipping White images, which stripped away their Black divinity, according to Baba Kwesi.
“What is our Black divinity? Our own Black spirituality, the representation of seeing our divinity represented in that spiritual light, seeing the reflection of God coming from ourselves,” he stated. That is why Black people are in spiritual enslavement, which may sound hard to people, he continued.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad started a revolution in the church from his own rebellion against the way of the church, Minister Farrakhan stated his message “We Must Reflect Jesus The Revolutionary,” delivered September 2005 at First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Because of him, a Black Theology emerged in the Christian house. Before the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was Black conscious.
It was the church of Marcus Garvey and many of the revolutionaries. But when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad started teaching us that Jesus was our brother because he was a Black man, then all of the White images of him came down and we began taking pride in ourselves,” Minister Farrakhan said.
Final Call staff contributed to this report.
