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Location within the Chicago metropolitan area. | |
Established | February 16, 1961 (current location since 1973) |
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Location | 740 East 56th Place Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S. |
Coordinates | 41°47′32″N087°36′26″W / 41.79222°N 87.60722°W |
President | Perri L. Irmer |
Website | www.dusablemuseum.org |
The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, formerly the DuSable Museum of African American History, is a museum in Chicago that is dedicated to the study and conservation of African-American history, culture, and art. It was founded in 1961 by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, her husband Charles Burroughs, Gerard Lew, Eugene Feldman, Bernard Goss, Marian M. Hadley, and others. [1] They established the museum to celebrate black culture, at the time overlooked by most museums and academic establishments. The museum has an affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution.
The DuSable Black History Museum was chartered on February 16, 1961. [2] Its origins as the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art began in the work of Margaret and Charles Burroughs, Bernard Goss, and others to correct the perceived omission of black history and culture in the education establishment. [3] [4] The museum was originally located on the ground floor of the Burroughses' home at 3806 S. Michigan Avenue. [3] [5] [6] In 1968, the museum was renamed for Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a fur trader of black African ancestry and the first non-Native-American permanent settler in Chicago. [7] [8] During the 1960s, the museum and the South Side Community Art Center, which was located across the street, founded in 1941 by Taylor-Burroughs and dedicated by Eleanor Roosevelt, [9] formed an African-American cultural corridor. [7] This original museum site had previously been a social club [10] and boarding house for African-American railroad workers and is now listed as a Chicago Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. [7] [11]
The DuSable Black History Museum quickly filled a void caused by limited cultural resources then available to African Americans in Chicago. It became an educational resource for African-American history and culture and a focal point in Chicago for black social activism. The museum has hosted political fundraisers, community festivals, and various events serving the black community. The museum's model has been emulated in numerous other cities around the country, including Boston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. [7]
In 1973, the Chicago Park District donated the usage of a park administration building in Washington Park as the site for the museum. [4] [5] The current location once served as a lockup facility for the Chicago Police Department. [5] In 1993, the museum expanded with the addition of a new wing named in honor of the late Mayor Harold Washington, [4] the first African-American mayor of Chicago. [12] In 2004, the original building became a contributing building to the Washington Park United States Registered Historic District which is a National Register of Historic Places listing. [13] [14]
The DuSable Black History Museum is the oldest, and — before the founding of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016 — the largest caretaker of African-American culture in the United States. Over its long history, it has expanded as necessary to reflect the increased interest in black culture. [15] This willingness to adapt has allowed it to survive while other museums faltered due to a weakening economy and decreased public support. [16] The museum was the eighth one located on Park District land. [4] Although it focuses on exhibiting African-American culture, it is one of several Chicago museums that celebrates Chicago's ethnic and cultural heritage. [17]
Antoinette Wright, director of the DuSable Black History Museum, has said that African-American art has grown out of a need for the culture to preserve its history orally and in art due to historical obstacles to other forms of documentation. She also believes that the museum serves as a motivational tool for members of a culture that has experienced extensive negativity. [18] In the 1980s, African-American museums such as the DuSable endured the controversy of whether negative aspects of the cultural history should be memorialized. [19] In the 1990s, the African-American genre of museum began to flourish despite financial difficulties. [18] In 2016, the museum formed an affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution. [20]
The new wing contains a permanent exhibit on Washington with memorabilia, personal effects and surveys highlights of his political career. [5] The museum also serves as the city's primary memorial to du Sable. [4] Highlights of its collection include the desk of activist Ida B. Wells, the violin of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, [21] and the Charles Dawson Papers. [22]
The museum has a collection of 13,000 artifacts, books, photographs, art objects, and memorabilia. [5] The DuSable collection has come largely from private gifts. It has United States slavery-era relics, nineteenth- and twentieth-century artifacts, and archival materials, including the diaries of sea explorer Captain Harry Dean. The DuSable collection includes works from scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, sociologist St. Clair Drake, and poet Langston Hughes. The African-American art collection contains selections from the South Side Community Art Center students Charles White, Richard Hunt, [23] Archibald Motley, Jr., Gus Nall, Charles Sebree, and Marion Perkins, as well as numerous New Deal Works Progress Administration period and 1960s Black Arts Movement works. The museum also owns prints and drawings by Henry O. Tanner, Richmond Barthé, and Romare Bearden, and has an extensive collection of books and records pertaining to African and African-American history and culture. [7] [24]
The original north entrance contains the main lobby of the museum and features the Thomas Miller mosaics, which honor the institution's founders. The building was designed c.1915 by D.H. Burnham and Company to serve as the South Park Administration Building in Washington Park on the city's South Side. [4] The new wing is 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2). The museum has a 466-seat auditorium, which is part of the new wing, that hosts community-related events, such as a jazz and blues music series, poetry readings, film screenings, and other cultural events. The museum also has a gift shop and a research library. [18] The museum's funding is partially dependent upon a Chicago Park District tax levy. [7]
After the 1993 expansion of the new wing, the museum contained 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) of exhibition space. The $4 million expansion was funded by a $2 million matching funds grant from city and state officials. [2] In addition, the museum has been working on preserving and expanding facilities in a nearby architecturally significant roundhouse. [25]
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is regarded as the first permanent non-Native settler of what would later become Chicago, Illinois, and is recognized as the city's founder. The site where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River around the 1780s is memorialized as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.
Washington Park is a community area on the South Side of Chicago which includes the 372 acre (1.5 km2) park of the same name, stretching east-west from Cottage Grove Avenue to the Dan Ryan Expressway, and north-south from 51st Street to 63rd. It is home to the DuSable Museum of African American History. The park was the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Aquatics Center in Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Douglas, on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, is one of Chicago's 77 community areas. The neighborhood is named for Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois politician and Abraham Lincoln's political foe, whose estate included a tract of land given to the federal government. This tract later was developed for use as the Civil War Union training and prison camp, Camp Douglas, located in what is now the eastern portion of the Douglas neighborhood. Douglas gave that part of his estate at Cottage Grove and 35th to the Old University of Chicago. The Chicago 2016 Olympic bid planned for the Olympic Village to be constructed on a 37-acre (15 ha) truck parking lot, south of McCormick Place, that is mostly in the Douglas community area and partly in the Near South Side.
Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School is a public 4–year high school campus in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Chicago Public Schools and named after Chicago's first permanent non-native settler, Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable. Constructed between 1931 and 1934, DuSable opened in 1935.
Keith Anthony Morrison, Commander of Distinction (C.D.), born May 20, 1942), is a Jamaican-born painter, printmaker, educator, critic, curator and administrator.
Washington Park is a 372-acre (1.5 km2) park between Cottage Grove Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive, located at 5531 S. Martin Luther King Dr. in the Washington Park community area on the South Side of Chicago. It was named for President George Washington in 1880. Washington Park is the largest of four Chicago Park District parks named after persons surnamed Washington. Located in the park is the DuSable Museum of African American History. This park was the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic swimming venue for Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Washington Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 20, 2004.
Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, also known as Margaret Taylor Goss, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs or Margaret T G Burroughs, was an American visual artist, writer, poet, educator, and arts organizer. She co-founded the Ebony Museum of Chicago, now the DuSable Museum of African American History.
Debra Hand is a self-taught artist and sculptor from Chicago, Illinois.
The Elam House, originally Simon Marks House, is a chateauesque-style residential building at 4726 South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by Henry L. Newhouse and built in 1903. It was later purchased by Melissia Ann Elam. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on March 21, 1979.
The South Side is one of the three major sections of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Geographically, it is the largest of the three sections of the city, with the other two being the North and West Sides. It radiates and lies south of the city's downtown area, the Chicago Loop.
Hank Willis Thomas is an American conceptual artist. Based in Brooklyn, New York, he works primarily with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture.
The area of New York's Capital District, also known as the Albany metropolitan area, has seen prominent historical events, artistic creations, and unique contributions to the culture of the United States since the 17th century. The largest city in the area, Albany, consistently ranks high on lists of top cities/metro areas for culture, such as being 23rd in the book Cities Ranked & Rated. The Albany-Schenectady-Troy metro area ranked 12th among large metro areas, and Glens Falls ranked 12th among the small metro areas, in Sperling's Best Places, and Expansion Management gave the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area five Stars, its highest ranking, for quality of life features.
Thomas Miller was a prolific graphic designer and visual artist, whose best known publicly accessible work is the collection of mosaics of the founders of DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, Illinois. The mosaics are a prominent feature of the lobby of the museum, the original portion of which was designed c.1915 by D.H. Burnham and Company to serve as the South Park Administration Building in Washington Park on the city's south side. After serving various purposes, the building became the home of the DuSable in 1973.
Culture Coast Chicago is a collection of artistically vibrant neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Known for its high concentration of museums, music and theater ensembles, performance venues, cultural nonprofits, and arts education opportunities, the region spans from just south of McCormick Place to the South Shore Cultural Center and is bordered by Lake Michigan to the east and the Dan Ryan Expressway to the west.
Turtel Onli is an American artist, entrepreneur, author, art therapist, educator, and publisher.
Eva Maria Lewis is an American activist. From South Side, Chicago, she has led a number of local protests, including the July 11, 2016 youth march on Millennium Park to protest police brutality. She has also founded two organizations, The I Project and Youth for Black Lives.
William Thacker McBride Jr. was an African-American artist, designer and collector. McBride began his career in the 1930s in the circles of black art collectives and artistic opportunities afforded by the Works Progress Administration. He would ultimately leave his mark in Chicago as a driving force behind the South Side Community Art Center. McBride distinguished himself as a teacher, as a cultural and political activist, and as a collector of African art and artwork by black artists of his generation.
Angela M. Rivers is an African American artist and curator, currently living in Chicago.
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