DuSable Museum Marks 65th Anniversary
The DuSable Black History Museum is celebrating its 65th anniversary. As the first and oldest museum in the U.S. dedicated to Black history, the Chicago institution is highlighting its extensive collection. The museum's holdings include the library of former U.S. President Barack Obama.
- The museum was founded on February 16, 1961, by artist and educator Dr. Margaret Taylor Burroughs and her husband Charles Burroughs. It was originally named the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art and was located on the ground floor of their Bronzeville home at 3806 S. Michigan Avenue. - In 1968, the institution was renamed to honor Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable, a fur trader of Haitian descent who is recognized as Chicago's first non-Native American permanent settler. - The museum relocated in 1973 to its current site in Washington Park, moving into a former park administration building and onetime Chicago Police Department lockup facility designed by D.H. Burnham and Company around 1915. - The collection holds more than 15,000 pieces, including the desk of journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, the violin of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, and archival materials from scholar W.E.B. Du Bois. - A significant expansion occurred in 1993 with the addition of the 25,000-square-foot Harold Washington Wing, named for Chicago's first African American mayor, which includes a 466-seat auditorium. - Founder Margaret Burroughs also co-founded the South Side Community Art Center in 1941, which was dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and became a key part of an African American cultural corridor with the museum.
