On this day in 1969, the University of Detroit Mercy dedicated Gino Testaguzzi’s bronze statue, The Black Madonna and Child. This artwork, commissioned to reflect diversity and inclusivity, was unveiled in a ceremony attended by Archbishop Cardinal Dearden, symbolizing the integration of black culture into the university’s Christian values.
TRANSCRIPT
In 1968, the University of Detroit Mercy, the private Catholic university in Detroit took on an effort to assist students unprepared to excel at the college and created the Special Projects Office. A year later, one of the findings was the black students routinely felt left out and recommend to Reverend Malcolm Carron, the President of Detroit Mercy to commission a piece of art to highlight this diversity. The students turned to sculptor Gino Testaguzzi to create a six-foot bronze statue called The Black Madonna and Child, which was dedicated on the Detroit Mercy campus on this day in 1969 in a ceremony attended by the then-Archbishop of Detroit, Cardinal Dearden, who said of this statue to inclusivity: “It symbolizes black culture helping to represent artistically the fullness of Christianity.”