J.D. McClain’s Day in Court

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

This mixed media work is Jeff Donaldson's interpretation of a photograph taken of the 1970 Marin County courthouse incident. The original newspaper photograph and caption can be seen in the center of the image. The figure on the left in the artwork has his left hand outstretched and the source image in the palm of his hand. In the original photograph, the man on the left is James McClain. In both images, he is holding a gun in his right hand at eye level pointed toward the figure on the right. Unlike McClain in the newspaper photograph, the man in the painting is wearing a black and white horizontally striped shirt with white numbers, [81970], on a black strip reminiscent of prison clothing. He is also wearing tan pants and a white jacket. The figure on the right in the original image is California Superior Court Judge Harold Haley dressed in black court dress robes.

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