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Arts 912 Preintvw: Jeff Donaldson
10/3/97, p.2

JD: Well I was forced to for about a year because I made a "D" and my mother never made a grade lower than "A." So I had to go underground with it.

KM: Did you just hide?

JD: Yeah, yup.

KM: I had that problem with math.

JD: Mmm-hmm.

KM: Did you have role models in terms of...

JD: Not before I got to college, no. I didn't know anything about any artist.

KM: Did anyone else make an impression on you like any politicians or entertainers or like Paul Robeson?

JD: A lot of people like that, yes. My mother was very race conscious.

KM: And you lived in Arkansas and you were born there...

JD: Right and reborn in Chicago.

KM: So when you got to college did you major in art?

JD: Not at first. They created a major for me so they wouldn't have to admit me at the University of Arkansas—the white school.

KM: Where did they create the major?

JD: At the school that I was at.

KM: But didn't you eventually go to the University of Arkansas?

JD: No, no, no. No I had, I was the only major there for a while. As a matter of fact, I was the first graduate to get a degree in art from that institution.

KM: Was that true of also, it sounds like an artist we're studying who's earlier than you also. I don't know if it was someone from the University of Iowa, who got...

JD: I have no idea.

KM: How did you come to write your dissertation about...

JD: Uh, I met Romare Bearden.

KM: Really? When did you meet him?

JD: Oh when I was doing my research. I was first going to do African Art at Northwestern and I discovered that all the books had been written by Europeans and I knew how insular African cultures were and I knew that much of the information that they got was not good information and I figured I'd start with something I knew about: the black