FORT DUSABLE
President Betty "Boo" Thornton
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realized the need to form a unified government. The result was the creation of the Continental Congress in 1774 with the subsequent merging of militias giving rise to the Continental Army in 1775. The demise of the Continental Congress as well as the disbanded Continental Army came at the end of the Revolutionary War. It was succeeded by the Congress of The Confederation and the United States Army which was created in 1784. Prior to its demise the Continental Army constructed a cluster of forts beginning in 1778 (Clinton, Putnam, Webb, Wyllys, Meigs and others) on a parcel of land strategically located along the Hudson River north of New York City. The community is the infamous West Point, home to the United States Military Academy and recognized as the oldest cosntinuously occupied military post in America. Another well known fortification is Fort Knox.
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DuSable High School
DuSable Avenue Bridge
Crossing The Chicago River
DuSable Museum of African American History
Bronzeville Statue
THE IMAGINARY FORT DUSABLE
As the membership of the BTMC grew it became necessary that a secured means of dissiminating sensitive information to its members via the internet be established. Observation of institutions that provide services to a members only clientel revealed that they are kept abreast of importrant issues via a members only website portal. When propositioned the BTMC executave staff gave their approval for the creation of a members only BTMC web site page.
WHY FORT DUSABLE ?
The webmasters of the BTMC developed its website incorporating page and segment themes named after military figures and places. Fort DuSable is a fictional place in that it doesn't and has never existed. After contemplating what to name our members only page Fort DuSable was created to pay homage to a man of an under-recognized history, the founding father of what would become the nations third largest city. Although Fort DuSable doesn't encorporate all of the defenses (perimeter walls, gun implacements, sentries, razor wire fence, etc.) of a fortification, the pre-identifier fort infers that Fort DuSable has the capibality of protecting content therein from unauthorized access.
POPULAR CHICAGO LANDMARKS
As Chicago developed its streets, buildings, statues, airports, interstate highways, schools, ballparks, etc., were named after Chicagoans of notable families or accomplishments. Some popular landmarks lining Chicago's skyline are the Sears Tower, Buckingham Fountain, Marina City Towers, McCormick Place, Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, Adler Planetarium, Lake Shore Drive, Navy Pier, Chicago Water Tower, the John Hancock Center and many others. However, none bear the name of Chicago's founding father, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable.
WENDELL PHILLIPS HIGH SCHOOL
The first of many public high schools to rise from the soil of Chicago's south side was the South Division High School in 1875. It was an institution that educated children of the communities wealthy families and their servants. Armour, Cudahy, Swift, Peacock, Stevens, Pullman and McCormick were prominent families of the community and icons in Chicago's history. South Division High was closed in 1904 when the construction of its predecessor named after abolitionist and advocate for Native American rights, Wendell Phillips was completed. Within a few years it would receive its first African American students arriving from the south.
Oh . . . a budding entreprenur living in the area in 1901 purchased the drug store located in Barrett's Hotel at 3742 S. Cottage Grove from his employer Issac Blood. Not yet a pillar of the community his name was Charles Rudolph Walgreen.
BRONZEVILLE
African American families began fleeing the oppressive rural south beginning in 1910 in search of urban jobs and a better way of life. Recognized as the "Great Migration" these families fanned-out for destinations across America. New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Washington D C, and a few other northern cities were primary destinations for more than 7M of the south's black population. Those families landing in Chicago gravitated to an area on its south side that would come to be known as Bronzeville. Why Bronzeville? James J. Gentry, an editor for the Chicago Bee, an African American newspaper is credited with tagging this growing community of bronze skin people with a name that reflected communities make-up.
Due to the continuing influx of migrating southerners to the area, African Americans represented 40% of Phillips H.S. student body by 1921. When exceeding its limitations students were required to attend classes in shifts. A few years after resolving the over crowding problem it again became an issue as the migration continued. The construction of a New Wendell Phillips High School at 49th Street Wabash Avenue was approved by the Board of Education in 1929, the year of the Great Depression. Opening in 1935 the student body of the old school took immediately occupancy the result of a fire that required that the old school be vacated. After being repaired it reopened to a freshman only student body.
One-hundred-fifty-six years after Jean Baptiste Point DuSable built his home and trading post on the north bank of what would become the Chicago River, the Chicago Board of Education became the first to honor Mr. DuSable. The new school on Wabash Avenue was initially planned as an annex of Wendell Phillips High School but was instead renamed Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School
A number of notable DuSable H.S. alumni include: George E. Johnson, Dinah Washington,
Nathaniel Cole a.k.a. Nat King Cole, Gwendolyn Brooks, Archibald Carey Jr., Sam Cooke,
Marla Gibbs, Don Cornelius, Redd Foxx, John H. Johnson, Gene Ammons, Maurice Cheeks
and Chicago's first African American Mayor, the Honorable Harold Washington.
RESOLUTION DENIED
Chicago City Council Black Caucus
28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith Introduces Resolution To Rename LSD - 1995
Leif Ericson Drive now Lake Shore Drive stretches 17 miles from its northern point at Hollywood Blvd to 67th Steet at its extreme southern tip. Its construction near the mansion of Potter Palmer a prominent business man was coerced to enhance the value of his lakefront property. Constructed for leisurely strolls by the wealthy and carriage rides, Mr Ford and the auto industry soon changed the role for which it was intended.
Potter Palmer, the renowned developer of State Street and Marshall Fields & Company was also founder of the Palmer House Hotel. Plans for Leif ericson Drive, a.k.a. Lake Shore Drive were in committee when Mr. Palmer coerced city councilmen to lay its path near his property formally at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive to enhance its value. Oh, Palmer Park in the Roseland Community is also named in his honor.
Constructed in 1937 Leif Ericson Drive crossed the Chicago River only two blocks east of where Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable erected his home and trading post in 1779. In 1946 it was befittingly renamed Lake Shore Drive in that it parralles the contour of Lake Michigan's shores. Why was it named Leif ericson Drive instead of DuSable Drive while still on the drawning board? There are no known contributions that Chicago benefited from the actions of Leif Ericson.
Alderman Ed Smith stated that tradition dictates that something significant, something on a grand scale, a building, park, boulevard, highway, institution, geographic feature be named for a prominent figure in Chicago's history. A coalition of black and lakefront aldermen proposed that Lake Shore Drive, be renamed after Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Drive in honor of the city's founder. Well . . . it didn't happen. Cost was given as the problem preventing the change. Oooh, come on man!
OWNER OF AN UNRECOGNIZED HISTORY
Although much isn't known about his early years, there are a number of documents that reference the life and legacy of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. Many of them give conflicting accounts relating to his place of birth, idenity of his parents and the birth name of his Native American wife.
Jean Baptiste was born to a slave girl Catharine in 1754 at Saint –Marc in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Dominique, present-day Haiti. His father. Pointe DuSable was a French sea captain/pirate. Another document indicates that Jean was born to a slave named Catharine and an unknown father at Cahokia, then part of French Illinois country, a land that wound receive its statehood in 1818.
Slaves residing in Cahokia were from Santa Domingo. Having a West Indies tie is apparently why Jean Pointe is thought of as having been born in Haiti. It is believed that his mother was killed in a Spanish raid on Saint-Domingo. Uncharacteristic of white men who impregnated slave women his father did not abandon his.
Learning the skills of a seaman under the tutorledge of his father young Jean took command of one of his father’s boats and set sail for the French owned and Spanish occupied territory of New Orleans. Losing the boat and sustaining injury the result of an unknown he would also lose his identification papers when it sank in the Gulf of Mexico. With the emancipation of slaves almost 100 years from ratification, if not for the protection
provided by French priest he most certainly would have been enslaved as he made his way north.
Making his way up the Mississippi River he settled in St. Louis before relocating to an area near Peoria, IL where he amassed over 800 acres of real estate. Out of their respect for Jean the Potawatomi Indians presented him with a gift, an Indian bride. He called her Catharine after his mother although her birth name was Kittahawa. Her connections were essential to her husband’s commercial success. To their union were born a son and daughter.
Jean was forced to leave the home he had known in that the Peoria area had been commandeered by British soldiers. By 1788 he and his family had relocated to a place that would become the third largest city in the U.S. and major hub in the nation’s transportation industry. Regardless of the smell produced by decaying swamp vegetation his trading post thrived. Trappers, traders, and merchants as far away as Detroit and Canada patronized his business. Inhabitants of the land called this place Eschikago (Chicago), the place of bad smells.
Approximately twenty years after establishing his business and the city of Chicago, Jean was forced to leave the land he cherished, selling his estates to Jean La Lime in 1800 prior to his departure for Peoria, IL. Canadian born John Kinzie, a silversmith by trade became Chicago's first white settler in 1804. That same year he purchased DuSable's estate and was appointed justice of the peace. He also holds the distinction of committing Chicago's first murder, killing the man who sold him DuSable's estates. Regardless of the crime committed or its seriousness, its apparent that it didn't tarnish his future accomplishments. He, as well as other notables Chicagoans have been recognized in the journals of it's history. Why not Jean Baptiste Point DuSable?
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Jean Baptiste Point DuSable
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On 21 Dec 2010 Chicago's outgoing Mayor Richard Daley and wife Maggie were honored by DePaul University for serving as Chicago's Mayor and First-Lady longer than anyother, displacing his parents by a slim margin. DePaul University chose to recognize them by renaming it's old Lytton building in their honor.
"Man has only one lifetime, but with honor history will remember you forever."
Zulfazlan Jumrah
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Fort Pierre
South Dakota
Through the centuries humans have constructed defensive positions, places, strongholds, encampments, etc., in a variety of increasingly complex designs. All of them fall under the definition of being a fortification. Sometimes referred to as as forts these compounds consisted of a number of buildings that were protected by sentries standing guard looking out over walls that encompassed the ompounds perimeter. History recognizes Spanards as the first inhabitants of the New World to construct a fortification on its shores. Fifteen-twenty-five was the year that Tampa Bay became home to Fort Brooke, a fortification possessing exceptional security and having the ability to successfully defend itself againt attack.
In years to come the U.S. Army would adopt the term fort as a pre-identifier for most of its installations. Years after Fort Brooke was constructed, the first of the Thirteen Colonies, Virginia was setteled. The year was 1607. As each of the colonies was settled, Georgia being the last in 1732 each of their governing bodies
EBONY MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY
A product of the Chicago Public School System, 14 year old Margaret Taylor and her siblings are shown living with their parents Alexander and Octave in the pages of Chicago's contribution to the 1930 U.S. Census. The location of their resident at 3948 S. Priaire Avenue, suggest that she attended and graduated from Wendell Phillips High School. Her early years in the Bronzeville community molded her desire to become a writer, columnist, poet, visual artist, colaborating founder of several art organizations and a teaching career that spanned 23 years at DuSable High School.
Mrs Borroughs's most notable accomplishment which she shares with her husband Charles was the founding of the Ebony Museum of African American History in 1959. Recognizing Jean Baptiste Point DuSable for accomplishment unknown to him, was commemorated in 1961 when Charles and Margaret Borrough renamed the museum, DuSable Museum of African American History. It was decided that it would be the second institution to bears his name because City of Chicago had never properly recognized DuSable as its founding founder.
The Bronzeville community, home to DuSable High School and the DuSable Museum of African
American History, are the only institutions that bear the name of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. Oh yes, and the DuSable Bridge and DuSable Park. Whoop-T- Doo! New York's Mayor Bloomberg succeeded in having the Queensboro Bridge renamed after former Mayor Ed Koch, New York's 105th mayor. What is the parity in naming a bridge or park after Chicago's FOUNDING father? Opportunities have come and gone with the city taking no action to right an obvious wrong. Chicago needs to resolve this problem and soon.
The first round of cities loosing their bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics included Chicago.
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MICHIGAN AVENUE BRIDGE RENAMED IN HONOR OF DUSABLE
ONE-HUNDRED-FIFTY-SIX YEARS LATER
Plans to build the Olympic Village on 37 acre site of the defunct
Michael Reese Hospital are being reconsidered according to Chicago Sun-Times 17 Dec 2010. Mayor Daley now envisions a
tech park on the site of the once prominent hospital. Located in the Bronzeville Community it will garner global recognition as an anchor for Chicago's mecca of technological firms. Mr. Mayor, what do you propose to name our new tech park? Remember Jean Baptiste Point DuSable's trading post was the catalyst for Chicago's growth. The radioactive 3.24 acre site chosen for DuSable Park would not garner him equal recognition. How does "DuSable Technological Park" sound?
