Hidden in a tree-filled Washington Park is a building that is now an iconic representation of Black Life in America.

Climbing up its iconic steps will lead you to a place to gather for celebrations and film screenings and dance performances

and music shows. But most importantly, the Du Sabao Black History Museum and Education Center

is where Black History is archived and saved. This is the mothership of black museums.

We are the oldest independent black history museum in the nation, founded in 1961 by Dr.

Margaret T. Burroughs.

Perry Irmer is the museum's president and CEO.

She says the museum has continued the tradition that Burroughs once

started in her Bronsville home. And Dr. Burroughs was a real Renaissance woman. She looked around and

saw that there was no celebration of black history, no archiving or record keeping of black excellence in this country that we

basically built. And so she started the museum really around an art collection, her own art

collection and things that people gave to her and her own arts and artifacts from her

travels around the world, especially to Africa.

But what about before 1961?

What about before black folks had our own museums?

Before we had the ducible, black achievement achievement was shown in another way through expositions.

And Chicago was home to an extremely important one.

This led a curious city listener to ask, what exactly was the 1940 American Negro exposition in Chicago?

The answer contains the DNA of places like the Du Sable

and about how we think about and present

Black history, Black achievement, and Black innovation.

I'm Arian Nettles.

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