The Dr. Albert B. Cleage, Sr. Memorial Health Center (ABCMHC) began as an expansion of the health ministry of The Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOCC) in 2004. The PAOCC has worked to address the social as well as spiritual needs of the Detroit community for over 57 years. The overwhelming need of the uninsured residents of Detroit to have access to state-of-the-art, patient-focused, primary care medical homes prompted the establishment of the ABCMHC as an independent 501(c)3, tax-exempt free clinic in 2005.
The clinic is named in honor of Dr. Albert B. Cleage, Sr. who practiced in Detroit at a time when black doctors were not permitted to admit their own patients to the “white” hospitals in the city. Dr. Cleage, along with a group of other black doctors, established the Dunbar Clinic in 1922; one of the first black owned and operated hospitals in Detroit.
Dr. Cleage’s son, the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. (Jaramogi Abebe Ageyman), later founded the Shrines of the Black Madonna in Detroit (as well as Atlanta, Ga., Houston, Tx. and Calhoun Falls, S.C.) and is known in academia as the founder of the ”Black Theology” movement. Rev. Cleage’s books, The Black Messiah and Black Christian Nationalism:New Directions for the Black Church, are required reading for seminary students throughout the world.