Face of Africa, c.1965 woodcut image: 11 13/16 x 10 inches (irregular) sheet: 18 x 15 7/8 inches (irregular) 61:1998 Museum Minority Artists Purchase Fund

She has served as art director for the Negro Hall of Fame and has illustrated many books including What Shall I Tell My Children Who are Black?, and For Malcolm. Dr. Burroughs made the print Face of Africa after her first trip to Africa in 1965 to study African culture. The Black Pride movement of the 1960s had generated a new interest amongst the African-American community for the reappraisal of African-American history and their roots, and Burroughs found linoleum cuts to be the perfect media in which to communicate and disseminate positive images of African-Americans, their history, and culture. Although Burroughs works in many media, she considers herself first a printmaker, preferring to work in the democratic and accessible medium of linoleum block prints. Burroughs works on her prints at home where she uses the simplest tools to create her dynamic images.

During the '40s Ms. Burroughs taught art in Chicago elementary schools, and published her first children's book, Jasper, the Drummin' Boy (1947). In 1967, she and Dudley Randall edited an anthology called For Malcolm: Poems on the Life and Death of Malcolm X, and published several volumes of her own poetry. Burroughs' art works in diverse media have been exhibited internationally.

Initially, Margaret and her husband co-founded the Ebony Museum of African American History in their home in 1961, the first African-American history and culture museum in the United States. Today the renamed and professionally managed DuSable Museum occupies its own building on Washington Park, offers a full calendar of educational programs and exhibits, and has a permanent collection consisting of more than 13,000 artifacts, artworks, books, and memorabilia related to the African-American experience. Margaret was born on November 1, 1917.
 

Kwame Brathwaite, President, Dr. Margaret Burroughs Founder and 
Al Surya Peterson, member of Planning Committee
(Ancestral Memory) at airport arrival.

GIRL SEATED Margaret Burroughs 1959 Watercolor on paper

The DuSable Museum of
African American History

As the first and oldest Black American museum in the United States, the DuSable Museum of African American History is dedicated to the collection, documentation, preservation, interpretation and dissemination of the history and culture of Americans of African descent and Africans throughout the Diaspora. In 1961, Dr. Margaret Burroughs with her late husband, Charles, and eleven other Chicago artists and educators established the first museum of African American history. The museum is named after Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable , a fur trader of African descent who was the first permanent settler in Chicago. DuSable Museum's collection includes artifacts, books, photographs , art objects and memorabilia totaling over 15, 000 items. Our Harold Washington wing features a 466 seat auditorium where various education and public programs occur.

DuSable Treasures: Selections
from the Permanent Collection of Art
DuSable Treasures showcases selected paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture that span well over one hundred years of the African American experience in the visual arts.

Harold Washington in Office
This permanent installation is a corporate office setting fashioned from memorabilia and personal effects from the life and political career of the late Mayor Harold Washington. Through rare materials, a narrated video and written text, museum visitors gain insight into the Washington mystique.

Fight To Fly: Blacks in Aviation
This permanent exhibition is comprised of photographs and materials on loan from the City of Chicago's Department of Aviation and items from the extensive archives of the DuSable Museum.

Africa Speaks
Virtually all African art proves to be functional in intent and/or use. Some of the objects on display, such as stools, chairs, combs, staffs and vessels, are carved to articulate particular events or occasions and comprise much of the art of Africa. Included also are the ritual masks used in unions with spirit forces or mythical characters, the carved figures (many of which function as surrogate spirit-ancestors) and the deity figures. Each figure has specific functions and applications in the ritual life of its people.

Ames Mural
The Freedom Now 9' x 8' bas-relief mural in wood by Robert Witt Ames depicts 400 years of history of Africans in America in 40 scenes beginning with their capture from their African homelands through the 1963 March On Washington.

Educational Programs
Our educational brochure features the year's schedule of plays, historical and character reenactments, music and dance performances that comprise part of our educational programs for school groups. Other educational resources include field experience guides, educator workshops and docent led tours. Through our educational offerings, the DuSable Museum seeks to interpret and illuminate the experiences and contributions of African Americans to America, world history, culture and art.

Visit the DuSable Museum web site [site is down]

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location: 
The DuSable Museum of African-American History
740 East 56th Place
Chicago, Illinois 60637-1495
Phone: 773-947-0600
Fax: 773-947-0677
TDD: 773-947-7203
Web Site: www.dusablemuseum.org
Email: admin@dusablemuseum.org

Source:  The History Makers
About The DuSable