Simon of Cyrene

[jesus_wept]

The theory is that Simon of Cyrene was a black guy from North Africa who was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Of course he could have been of any ethnicity but he's normally depicted as a black guy.

A bit off topic but it always amuses me how Christians change the race of the characters to suit the audience they're preaching to. For instance Europeans think Jesus was a white guy, Middle Easterners think he's a Semite, Africans think he's black, Indians think he was Indian and the Chinese think he looked Chinese. No doubt if Martians ever visited he'd suddenly be a small, green man with eyes on antennas to suit them too.