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From WB.EZ.

What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen.

When you look around Chicago's public schools today, it's easy to spot a number of schools named in honor of black people,

like Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, or Paul Lawrence Dunbar, famed poet and writer.

But most of the city's oldest schools are named after white men, like George Washington, Edgar

Allen Poe, and Theater Roosevelt. This led a curiousity

listener to ask, what is the first Chicago Public School named in honor of a black person?

Reporter Ariane Nettles picks up this week's question.

The answer takes us back to 1936. The city had just built its first high school to serve an exclusively black student population,

according to the Chicago Defender.

And they named it Du Sabaabelle High School after Jean-B Point Du Sabao, Chicago's first non-indigenous

settler. As quote, father of Chicago, Du Saba was from present-day Haiti. Today, his name

is one we can see on monuments, even driving on Lakeshore Drive. So naming the first all-black

school after DuSable seems perfect.

But in the 1930s, it was a bit controversial. So why named the school Du Sable?

He was an entrepreneur. He was a traitor. And by the late 1770s, he was living in what is

currently Chicago with his Potawatomi wife, Kitahawa.

Elizabeth Ty Breland is an associate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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