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CONFABA'70 or Conference on the Functional Aspects of Black Art was a visual art conference that took place at Northwestern University campus in Evanston, Illinois, on May 6-10, 1970. Organized by Jeff Donaldson in cooperation with the Black Student Organization at Northwestern University, the conference brought together more than a hundred African-American visual and performing artists, art historians, cultural critics, and interdisciplinary scholars. In the course of four days, they dealt with the issues of preserving, protecting, and projecting the visual art legacy of Black people in the U.S. CONFABA was one of the seminal events of the Black Arts Movement.

History
Preparations for the Conference started at the end of 1968, when Jeff Donaldson, a lecturer at the Art History Department at Northwestern University, contacted several prominent art historians, including David C. Driskell, Chairman at the Department of Art at Fisk University, and James A. Porter, Chairman at the Art Department at Howard University, with the proposition to organize a conference of Afro-American Art Historians. In his letter to James A. Porter, Donaldson explains the necessity to organize such a conference:

The idea of a conference of Afro-American Art Historians came as a result of some thoughts on the tremendous popularity and marketability of any and everything that "bears the mark of blackness" nowadays. I feel that the tempo and tenor of these times will produce a veritable plethora of Afro-American art histories which contain a paucity of serious, meaningful or directional content. This, I hope you will agree, will be a disservice to scholarship and, more importantly, a mockery of the ever-expanding quest for self-knowledge which is so strongly expressed throughout Afro-Americana. As a budding art historian I know from personal experience the response of the coldly efficient American Publishing Establishment is to immediately capitalize (and literally) on this interest with little regard for the seriousness of the subject matter or responsibility to our posterity. I therefore feel that it is the responsibility of the producers (Afro-American Art Historians) to resist the temptation to sacrifice quality and thoroughness for the sake of deadlines established to meet market demands.

From Jeff Donaldson’s letters to David C. Driskell it is clear that initially, Donaldson wanted to organize the Conference in a historically Black college. However, by mid-1969, Northwestern University, where Jeff Donaldson was doing his PhD and working as a lecturer, was chosen as the main venue for CONFABA.

Donaldson and his students sent invitations to the Conference across the country to the distinguished African-American scholars and curators, visual and performing artists. The organizers formed a group entitled “Elders of Distinction” who were invited to the Conference. Among them were Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, Aaron Douglas, John Howard, Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones, Hughie Lee-Smith, Hale Woodruff, and Elizabeth Catlett. Not all of them could attend the Conference in person, but those who were not present sent their written address to the Conference. Elizabeth Catlett, a former U.S. Citizen who at that time lived in Mexico, was denied a visa to the U.S. and could not attend the conference in person. She read her speech to CONFABA participants via the phone. In its article about the conference, Jet magazine explained why this group was particularly important for CONFABA:

"Recognizing that artists, like Black people, have had to make compromises to get their work accepted, the conference members praised those artists who had endured past indignities by naming them “Elders of Distinction.” The conference began and ended with their wisdom to dispel any ideas of a generation gap and effectively incorporate the past with the present in order to determine the future."

Dorothy "Toot" Carter, one of Jeff Donaldson's students, created a logo for CONFABA, which by the end of the Conference was silkscreened onto large poster stock of 150 copies, which were distributed among the participants. Cherilyn C. Wright, another CONFABA participant, noted that the poster which represented two black hands at the end of two long black arms which held and caressed a spherical red swirl as if molding spirit into matter, had captured the essence of the Conference.

Conference
The Conference began in the midst of the biggest national student protest that erupted after the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970. On the first day of the Conference on May 6, CONFABA was the only ongoing academic event on campus as Northwestern University students went on strike and all classes were suspended. On May 7, 1970, due to the riots campus was shut down and the National Guard was brought to Evanston. However, the Conference continued. The Conference's sessions took place not only on Northwestern University's campus but also on the South Side of Chicago. Participants were provided with the tour of Black art centers, which included visits to the DuSable Museum, the South Side Community Art Center, Afam Studio and Gallery, and also to the studios of Chicago visual artists such as Wadsworth Jarrell.

At the beginning of the Conference, each participant was assigned to one of six task forces whose goal was to provide a foundation for the preservation, protection, and projections of African-American visual art history. The task forces and their members were:
 * Education task force. Participants: Theresa Christopher, David Driskell, Eugenia Dunn, Carolyn Lawrence, Malkia Roberts, Frank Smith, Arlene Turner, Carole Ward
 * Research task force. Participants: E. Barry Gaither, Allan Gordon, Eugene Grigsby, Donald Joyce, Willie Moore, Hughe Lee-Smith, Shirley Woodson Reid
 * Resources task force. Participants: Chester Bolden, Harold Dorsey, Tritobia Hayes Benjamin, Ademola Olugebefola, Ann Taylor
 * Dissemination task force. Participants: Tom Feelings, Caroll Green, Jr., Samella Lewis, E.J. Montgomery, Yvonne Edwards, Tucker, 			Charelene Tull, William Walker, Lawrence Rushing, Nelson Stevens
 * Philosophy task force. Participants: Aba (Cecille McHardy), Skunder Boghossian, Marie Johnson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Paul Keene, 			Columbus Kepler, Valerie Maynard, Larry Neal, Edsel Reid, Josephus Richards, Faythe Weaver
 * Aesthetics task force. Participants: Sylvia Boone, David Bradford, Dana Chandler, Floyd Coleman, Sylvia Kinney, Ibn Pori Pitts

By the end of the Conference, each task force presented its recommendations. Later they were summarized by Jeff Donaldson in the final report of the Conference. Many conclusions made during the CONFABA, significantly intersected with the ideas developed by the artists of AfriCOBRA. Jet magazine summed up the results of CONFABA with the following:

"Some of the conclusions they agreed upon were that Black people prefer paintings with bright “kool-aid” colors, human subjects, expressive lines and action relevant to their environment. “The whole idea,” added Donaldson, “is to use those aspects that appeal to the people to get some kind of message across and give some direction to Black people’s lives. All art is political. Even nonobjective art makes a political statement.” The group 			concluded that the home should be made a gallery, producing films of Black artists, and “free” reproductions."