Street preacher, faith healer, and self-taught artist Prophet William Blackmon died on February 8, 2010, at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan. Following service in the Pacific during World War II, where he “learned to pray” under constant aerial bombardment, Blackmon returned to the Midwest and began almost three decades of itinerant preaching, which secured his renown as “the hitchhiking man of God.” In 1974, he settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and opened the first in a series of storefront “revival & enterprise centers” in the city’s impoverished inner core. His hand-painted signs on scraps of wood advertising shoe repair, laundering, and other services soon caught the eye of local collectors who encouraged him to add figures and narrative detail. By 1980, Blackmon was using his paintings, which were inspired by Biblical passages but often addressed social issues vital to the black community, to support his grassroots ministry. “The greatest theology is in the streets,” he insisted, “the troubles are in the streets. I go to areas where buildings have been torn down, where there are vacant lots, and I minister to these people.”