DuSable Black History Museum

The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center at 740 E 56th Place, in Washington Park on Chicago's South Side in Illinois, is the oldest independent African American history museum in the United States. It was founded in 1961 by educator and artist Margaret Burroughs, with Charles Burroughs and others, first in a house on South Michigan Avenue and later in its present home, a former Chicago Park District administration building in Washington Park designed in the early twentieth century by Daniel Burnham Jr. and Hubert Burnham. The museum is named for Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a Haitian-born trader who established a settlement at the mouth of the Chicago River in the late eighteenth century and is regarded as Chicago's first permanent non-Indigenous resident. The museum's collections cover African American art, photography, textiles, sculpture and historical documents, with strengths in the Black Chicago experience, the Great Migration and the Black Arts Movement. Its approach is thematic rather than strictly chronological, with exhibits that connect local history to national movements in civil rights, music and the arts, and a gallery of work by Black artists. The building is a Beaux-Arts-influenced limestone structure set in a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and an addition in 1993 named for Chicago mayor Harold Washington provides more gallery and event space. The museum is a Chicago landmark and has become an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. It has gone through periods of renovation, and visitors should check current galleries and programs. Admission is charged, and the museum is typically open Wednesday to Saturday, so hours should be confirmed on dusablemuseum.org. A visit typically takes one to two hours, and the nearby Washington Park and Obama Presidential Center area make a larger South Side itinerary possible.