Margaret Burroughs Dead: DuSable Museum Founder's Legacy Lives On

CHICAGO — A founder of one of the oldest African-American history museums in the country has died.

A spokesman for the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, Raymond Ward, says Margaret Burroughs died in her sleep at her Chicago home Sunday morning.

Further details about her death were not immediately available.

President Barack Obama said in a statement that Burroughs was "widely admired for her contributions to American culture as an esteemed artist, historian, educator, and mentor."

Burroughs founded the museum with her husband and others on Chicago's South Side in 1961.

The museum has pieces of art, exhibits on civil rights and a display on Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington. It was named after Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, widely regarded as Chicago's first permanent resident.

Comments

[Midnightrain]

01:17 PM on 11/23/2010

Thank you for your work, dear sister Burroughs.

Barack: You could have said something more substantive and meaningful; something relevant to black history.

[Ferrante Photo]

01:34 PM on 11/22/2010

R.I.P. I haven't visited DuSable since it moved and I was a child. I should have corrected that a long time ago. I will now.

[BlindChance]

12:31 PM on 11/22/2010

Thank you Ms. Burroughs for your great service to our community. Your ability to see beyond yourself and your contemporaries and provide a lasting institution is greatly appreciated. Your legacy will live on.

[John Viramontes]

09:12 AM on 11/22/2010

I last saw Burroughs in Sept. of ‘07 when she was called to testify in the Chicago courtroom of federal judge David Coar in a dispute between wildflower artist Chapman Kelley and the Chicago Park District. In 1984 Kelley installed a nonconcommissioned public artwork in Daley Bicentennial Plaza with official park district approval. In 2004 the CPD mutilated the 66,000 sq. ft. 'Chicago Wildflower Works' which consisted of two ellipses of native illinois plants, framed by gravel and steel banding. An appeals court decision is imminent in this landmark visual artists' rights case which has garnered international media coverage. http://webfarm.foliolink.com/Asset.asp?AssetID=13149&AKey=JLBDK6W2 John Viramontes - Council for Artists' Rights

[Howard53545]

05:52 AM on 11/22/2010

The grim reaper came for her like a thief in the nite.

[miamivalleyjournal]

11:46 PM on 11/21/2010

What an inspiration. I would like to learn more about Dr. Burroughs' life and work.