Yonnet Honors PR Legend Ofield Dukes

[Washington, DC,  January 13, 2010] Urban Jazz Harmonicist Frédéric Yonnet performed a soulful rendition of “Amazing Grace” at the memorial service of Ofield Dukes held at Shiloh Baptist Church, January 13, 2012, Washington, DC.

Hundreds of family, friends, political figures, media personalities and generations of communications executives turned out to celebrate the life of Ofield Dukes.  CNN Political Commentator Jamal Simmons and ABC 7 news anchor Maureen Bunyan served as masters of ceremonies. There were over 18 speakers. including DC Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC Mayor Vincent C. Gray, former DC Mayors Sharon Pratt and Marion Barry and former Secretary of Labor, Alexis M. Herman (pictured right).  Reverend Dr. Wallace Charles Smith, Senior Minister, Shiloh Baptist Church, presided.

Dukes died of bone cancer on Dec. 7, 2011 at the age of 79 in his hometown of Detroit.

Audience members were visibly moved and uplifted by Yonnet’s rendition of “Amazing Grace”.  Former wife Dr. Rosa Trapp Dail, told Yonnet “stirred my soul and that when Yonnet when to another place musically, I went with you”.  Virginia Williams, mother of former mayor Anthony Williams approached Yonnet after the service and said she only cried twice during the memorial and the second time was while listening to Yonnet.  Read more about Dukes and his contribution to the public relations society and the country.

After working in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Dukes opened his public relations agency in the National Press Building in 1969, with Motown Records as his first client.

Dukes came to Washington in l964 to work in the Johnson-Humphrey Administration as Deputy Director of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, chaired by former President Lyndon B. Johnson. A year later, he was appointed to the staff of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. Dukes had become a gate keeper for African American reporters needing access to the White House for every Democratic administration since LBJ.

In l969, Dukes opened his public relations firm in the National Press Building, with Motown his first client. Leading to the launch of his independent practice, he consulted with every Democratic presidential candidate since 1968, organized the first dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1972, and counted Coretta Scott King, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., “Roots” author Alex Haley and boxing promoter Don King among his clients. Dukes was among the first African-American members of the Democratic National Committee‘s finance committee.

As the major link to Black leadership, Dukes leveraged his  political connections and his Washington influence to became one of the country’s leading African-American public-relations professionals. In 1981, he worked closely with Stevie Wonder to generate support for the Civil Rights movement and a national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday.  Dukes also had a key role in planning a march on Washington that helped lead to King’s birthday being declared a national holiday. Three decades later, Dukes witnesses the unveiling of the King memorial on the National Mall.

Dukes was a founding member of the Black Public Relations Society of Washington in 1993. Many of his former colleagues were in the pews on Friday.

“Ofield was both a communications guru and someone who believed in equal opportunity for all,” DNC official Donna Brazile said Friday. “He was an adviser, a mentor, but most of all a writer who believed that we must all tell our story and tell it again and again.”

At his company’s peak, in the late 1970s, Dukes had more than a dozen employees and annual billings of more than $1million.

At his company’s peak, Dukes had more than a dozen employees  and annual billings of more than $1 million. He also had big-name clients like Anheuser-Busch, CBS Records, AT&T,  the National Bankers Association, the National Education Association and the Treasury Department. He represented several foreign countries, including Ghana and Liberia; participated in international trade missions; and helped rally opposition to the apartheid regime of South Africa.

In 2002, Cathy Hughes, founder of Radio One, named three Detroit station buildings the Ofield Dukes Communications Center because of his service to the black community and black press.

Read more stories about Ofield Dukes:

• The Washington Post by Hamil R. Harris
• USA Today by By Matt Schudel, Washington Post
• The History Makers
• Black America Web Little-Known Black History Fact: Ofield Dukes
• Jet (First Marriage after 40; page 29)
• Ebony (First-Time Father After 50; page 56)