TEACHING MOMENT “Did You Know?”The City of Chicago Was Founded by a Black Immigrant

TEACHING MOMENT
“Did You Know?”
The City of Chicago Was Founded by a Black Immigrant

TEACHING MOMENT 👇
“Did You Know?”
The City of Chicago Was Founded by a Black Immigrant

Before the skyscrapers, before the trains and the skyline, before the name Chicago was ever spoken by millions —
a Black man built the first home here.

His name was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.

Born in Haiti around 1750 — of African descent and rich Caribbean heritage — he arrived in North America in his twenties. He traveled the frontier, traded with Indigenous communities, learned their languages, and eventually settled along the shores of Lake Michigan.

This was the 1780s — long before America called this place Chicago.

Where others saw wilderness, du Sable saw a future.

He built a thriving trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River.
He built community.
He built commerce.
He built the earliest foundation of what would become one of the greatest cities on Earth.

Chicago’s very first permanent settler.
A Black immigrant.
A man who married into the Potawatomi Nation — his wife Kittihawa — forming a family and a legacy woven into the land itself.

Long before anyone tried to erase him from history,
Chicago was already his.

Today, his name finally stands where it always should have:

🏙️ Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive
🌉 DuSable Bridge on Michigan Avenue
🏛️ DuSable Museum of African American History
🗿 A striking bronze bust outside the Evanston Public Library

A reminder that Black history is not a chapter added later —
it is the foundation.

So when we speak of Chicago — its culture, its pride, its influence —
we honor the man who built the first home, the first business, the first footprint.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.
Founder of Chicago.
Immigrant.
Visionary.
A Black man who made history long before history was willing to write his name.