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Respect! Black Heroes with Brushes
The Wall of Respect

1967, in reaction to growing racial and political tension in America's inner-cities and the birth of COINTELPRO, the CIA's initiative to "destabilize, 'subversive,' 'radical,' 'un-American organizations," 14 Black artists on the Chicago's Southside organized a counter attack, a "guerilla mural" project, come to be known as the "The Great Wall of Respect." Jeff Donaldson, participating artist, founding member of the organization of Black American Culture (OBAC, the artists umbrella group), co-founder of AfriCobra, and former chair of the Howard University Art Department, documents the "Rise, Fall and legacy of the Wall of Respect." Donaldson, while documenting the motivation, process and eventual demise of the group, also situates the mural movement in the context of the Black Power struggle and its cultural counterpart, The Black Arts Movement. 

Formed around the idea of "cultural expression as a useful weapon in the struggle for black liberation," the muralists, all members of OBAC's Visual Arts workshop, erected an outdoor mural on a Southside Chicago tavern at 43rd and Langley to commemorate "Black Hereos." Understanding "the essential function of a 'people's art' [to] build self-esteem and stimulate revolutionary action," the group solicited an approved list of heroes from community members and established rapport with the community merchants and its official and "unofficial" leadership. While poets Haki Madhubutti and Gwendolyn Brooks scribed poems in its honor, the muralists completed

Takema M. Robison/ 01107857
African American Art II
Wall of Respect Focus Reading
February 14, 2001