Biography
Glanton Dowdell was a Detroit artist and Black labor organizer associated with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. He had spent years in Michigan prisons before becoming known for the Black Madonna mural at Detroit’s Shrine of the Black Madonna. Dowdell moved to Sweden in 1969 while facing a federal savings-bond forgery prosecution. Swedish police arrested him in 1971 on the United States’ extradition request, but the Stockholm District Court rejected the prosecutor’s request to keep him detained and released him. The exact arrest and release dates have not been located. Dowdell remained in Sweden until his death in January 2000.
Inner City Voice reported in March 1968 that federal agents had jailed Detroit organizer Glanton Dowdell on savings-bond forgery allegations and that he was released on $1,000 bond. This earlier United States detention is separate from his later Swedish extradition proceedings.
