Bishop Kwabena Albert "Rainey" Cheeks made community care a practice of faith, carrying it from a Black LGBTQ dance floor to an AIDS-service organization and an affirming pulpit. Cheeks, a Washington pastor, activist, and taekwondo grand master, died on August 11, 2026, at 74, the Washington Blade reported.

A native of Washington, Cheeks grew up in Northeast D.C. Long before ministry became his public calling, martial arts taught him discipline and protection. He began training at 14, earned a black belt by 16, and joined the first United States team sent to the taekwondo world championships in 1973. He told Metro Weekly that he won silver and bronze medals there and ranked among the nation's top competitors. He later attained ninth-degree grand master rank and entered the Tae Kwon Do International Hall of Fame.

His skill as a builder became literal at the ClubHouse, the Black LGBTQ social venue he helped construct and operate beginning in 1975. The club offered a protected late-night gathering place in a city where Black patrons could face exclusion elsewhere. As closing time approached, the music shifted to gospel and the dance floor became a place of praise, according to the Rainbow History Project. There, celebration, safety, and spiritual refuge shared one address.

When the AIDS crisis reached the ClubHouse community, that network became a system of mutual aid. Cheeks and fellow organizers founded Us Helping Us in 1985 around the needs of Black gay men. The group registered as a District nonprofit in 1988. Us Helping Us now operates two Washington-area locations, including a certified freestanding mental health clinic, and works toward health equity for underserved communities.

Cheeks's spiritual training developed alongside that civic work. He graduated from the National Spiritual Science Center and was ordained in 1982, according to Inner Light Ministries. In 1993, he founded Inner Light Ministries with ten members, first gathering at First Congregational Church. The ministry became independent in 2002 and centered liberation theology, social justice, and what the church called radical inclusiveness. Its greeting distilled his theology into six words: "I see the God in you," he told Metro Weekly. Inner Light Ministries eventually named him pastor emeritus.

That welcome carried practical consequences. Inner Light combined worship with HIV education and testing, including testing after some Sunday services, according to WETA's Boundary Stones. In a statement following Cheeks's death, the church said his advocacy and inclusive ministry had influenced ministers and ministries beyond Washington, the Washington Blade reported. Cheeks gave Black LGBTQ Washington a church in which identity, health, and faith did not have to be separated.

His work also extended through teaching, grief counseling, public speaking, and writing. He received a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1999 and published Reclaiming Your Divine Birthright in 2011. Civic and health organizations honored him for community service, while the Rainbow History Project preserved his oral history as part of Washington's LGBTQ record.

The spaces Cheeks helped create still carry his method of care. The ClubHouse lives in the city's archives and community traditions. Us Helping Us continues its services, and Inner Light continues to gather around a theology of full welcome. Together, they form a durable map of how he served Washington: open the door, protect the people inside, and give them room to thrive.