"Despite the common depictions in Western cultures of Jesus as a blond, blue-eyed hippy looking man, all reasonable evidence points to the fact that Jesus could not have been of Scandinavian extraction and certainly was a brotha of colour," said the paper.

A committee of experts appointed by the newspaper picked the list of 100 icons, looking for people who "inspire others on an emotional or intellectual level," and who have "more than a little of the 'X' factor" about them.

Jesus topped a list which included the inventor George Washington Carver and the Nation of Islam activist Malcolm X. Justifying its decision, the New Nation said: "Jesus is, without question, the biggest icon that has ever existed. Not only does he have a devoted following of millions – even more than Michael Jackson – but he has remained in the top icon spot for the past 2,000+ years. Not bad for a black yout' who started life in humble circumstances."

Reporting the event, the BBC website questioned whether Jesus could be called "black", and asked the New Testament scholar Dr Mark Goodacre for his opinion. He came down firmly in the middle on the issue. "We do seem to have a relatively dark skinned Jesus," he said, noting that Jewish people living in the first century were, like Mediterranean people today, darker skinned than modern Europeans.

"In contemporary parlance, I think the safest thing is to talk about Jesus as 'a man of colour'," he concluded.

The New Nation ended its citation of Jesus with a tongue-in-cheek proof that Jesus must have been black:

1. He called everybody 'brother'.
2. He liked Gospel.
3. He couldn't get a fair trial.