Jeff R. Donaldson, Leader In '60s Black Arts Movement, 71

[DGH]

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Jeff R. Donaldson, a key figure in the 1960s Black Arts Movement, and
one of the forces behind "The Wall of Respect," a montage mural of
more than 50 African-American heroes in the Grand Boulevard
neighborhood, and an art historian, critic and the former dean of the
College of Fine Arts at Howard University, died Sunday, February 29,
2004, in Washington DC where he had been undergoing treatment for
prostate cancer and where he suffered a heart attack last week, at the
age of 71.

The 1967 work, displayed on the side of a two-story building at 43rd
Street and Langley Avenue, launched the now-international trend of
community-based outdoor murals. But, at the time, it was even more
significant as a statement of rebellion against a white-dominated
society.

"It was a guerrilla mural," Mr. Donaldson said in a recent interview.
"It was a clarion call, a statement of existence of a people."

"His work was exciting, and he was able to excite everybody else,"
said Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Carol Adams, who
knew Mr. Donaldson for more than 30 years. "If you look at his art --
the color, the symmetry -- it's like jazz on canvas. He was a
celebrator of our roots through his painting."

Mr. Donaldson, who had a doctorate in art history from Northwestern
University, "was an artist of the first rank," said poet Haki
Madhubuti, founder of Third World Press, a Chicago-based independent
African-American publishing house. "Jeff was able to go anywhere he
wanted, but he felt it was his obligation to stay at [historically
black] Howard University."

Once completed, "The Wall of Respect" was an immediate neighborhood
landmark where local activists and Black Power advocates gave
speeches, organized protests and hosted art festivals.

"It became the rallying point for a lot of radical things," Mr.
Donaldson said.

The city razed the building in 1971 after a fire.

Mr. Donaldson, who at the time of his death was vice president of the
Barnes Foundation, one of the world's leading collections of French
impressionist and postimpressionist paintings, was the co-founder of
the Organization of Black American Culture, the group of artists
responsible for the mural.

In 1968, he was one of the founders of AfriCOBRA, an art collective
aimed at developing a new, socially responsible African-American
esthetic.

He moved to Washington in 1970 to teach at Howard, arriving
"warrior-erect, 6-foot-6, dashiki-clad, commanding and sternly on a
mission," wrote Paul Richard of The Washington Post in 2000.

Mr. Donaldson's daughter Jameela said, "He was a great scholar and
activist, but he was also a great dad. He liked sweet potato pie. He
did The Washington Post crossword puzzle every morning."

His niece Alice Singleton said, "The self-esteem he had was amazing.
He was larger than life. He told me a year or so ago that he enjoyed
every minute of his life."

In the 1969 countercultural movie "Medium Cool," set in Chicago, Mr.
Donaldson portrayed a black radical. The role reflected a militancy he
retained throughout his life.

In his last interview, Mr. Donaldson said that Martin Luther King Jr.
was consciously excluded from "The Wall of Respect."

"We were not non-violent," he said. "We saw [King's] movement as
counterproductive."

The increase in opportunities for African-Americans, he argued,
occurred "more as a consequence of the threat of revolution than by
all the praying by Martin Luther King."