ABSTRACT
On the South Side of Chicago, the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) came to fruition between 1966 and 1967 through the founding efforts of Abdul Alkalimat a graduate student in sociology at the University of Chicago. The crowning achievement of the OBAC Visual Arts Workshop was the Wall of Respect, a public mural painting that paid tribute to African American heroes, male and female. An OBAC stated goal—to provide a “new context for the Black Artist,” was realized by the site itself—in the inner city, on the street, among the people. The OBAC Visual Arts Workshop was already fragmenting when an incident brought the internal tensions out into the open. A consummation of the Black Arts Movement zeitgeist to honor creative and prominent Black people, celebrate Black achievement, and expand indigenous African American culture, Wall of Respect and its many progeny spoke directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America.
