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the project in August of 1967 and the Wall became a "shrine to black creativity ...a rallying point for revolutionary rhetoric ... and a national symbol of the heroic black struggle for liberation."


     As much as Donaldson's piece is a reaccount of who, where, when and what, it is also an "insider's" editorial.  When read between the lines, Donaldson, although shying away from calling too many names, obviously did not leave the group unscathed. His mention of "two factions" within the group leads the reader to infer that there are at least two side to this story. While paying homage to the mural movement's direct predecessors, African American WPA muralists, and its most important influences, the "revolutionary Mexican" muralists, Donaldson fails to elaborate or provide examples. Donaldson's article also fails to draw direct correlations   to how the mural movement influenced its progeny. One might be able to fill in the blanks with regards to graffiti art, but without additional evidence his insistence that the mural movement influenced other mainstream artists is a stretch. Donaldson's own statements stand in contradiction. Insisting that the most salient element of the mural movement was the "[reintroduction of] the moral dimension absent from European art," and its questioning of the "validity of art for art's sake," it would seem that if the "works of mainstream artists... [lacked] the political lifeblood characteristic of the work of black artists," that the mural movement failed to pass-on its most important value. Without specific examples this argument becomes mute.



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