12033: Funky Turns Forty.

The DuSable Museum in Chicago presents Funky Turns Forty. According to the website, “This special exhibition commemorates the 40th anniversaries of 1970’s Saturday Morning cartoons that featured positive Black characters for the first time in television history. The exhibition includes original production pieces and drawings used to produce these cartoons. Also included are images from the animated opening to Soul Train and two of the few Black cast/Black focused animated features that have been produced since the 1970’s, BeBe’s Kids (1992) and Our Friend Martin (1999).”

8205: Dr. Margaret Burroughs Tribute.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Master of colors and canvas

By Haki R. Madhubuti

In 1962, the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art, which was the original name of The DuSable Museum of African American History, ran an ad in the Chicago Defender that captured my young mind. I was a soldier stationed at Fort Sheridan, and although I read everything “black” I could get my hands on, there was no one I could talk to who had any interest in the serious intellectual, economic, political and cultural development of African-Americans.

At the first opportunity, I found myself at the museum’s door seeking to know more about this organization and its founder, Margaret G.T. Burroughs. At that time the museum was located in her and her husband Charles “Charlie” Burroughs’ home on South Michigan Avenue. She, her husband and the museum’s curator Eugene Feldman received me with open arms and offered me support and guidance. Between 1962 and 1966, I was a volunteer in the early stages of building the DuSable Museum, and Margaret Burroughs became a mentor to me. Her wisdom and insight kept me sane and culturally grounded.

She was the unchallenged institution builder of Chicago. Not only was she a founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History, she was also instrumental in the creation of the South Side Community Arts Center and the National Conference of Artists, which recently celebrated 50 years of existence.

Margaret Burroughs was a world-class visual artist, a writer and thinker with immense extraordinary talent who mentored thousands of artists, writers, social justice workers and others throughout her long life. She will be missed.

I dedicated the following poem at a tribute for Burroughs at The Art Institute of Chicago last month. She died Nov. 21 at her Bronzeville home.

how did we arrive?
mothers as artists and seers
as earth toilers, sun consumers
workers at midnight and dawn
nurtured us with apples, bananas, open hearts, seeds,
cultural language, illustration and institutions.
lovingly cut the umbilical cord,
not the commitment or sacred findings.
you with the brushes, canvas, paint, tools and ideas
with African hair, mind and memory
instigated an uprising to change the conversation
quickening our run toward saneness, smiles and fear
out-pacing a leadership who moves
like roaches with alzheimers.
today,
we, on jet powered roller skates
still eat your dust
still are wondrous of the measure
of your gifts.

Haki R. Madhubuti is the Ida B. Wells-Barnett professor at DePaul University and the founder and publisher of Third World Press.

8194: More Thoughts On Dr. Margaret Burroughs.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Arts had great champion in Margaret Burroughs

It wasn’t unusual for Margaret Burroughs to ask people, “What will your legacy be?” or “How will you make your mark on the world?”

Answering those questions for herself became the driving force in Burroughs’ life.

And Chicago is a better city for it.

Burroughs, who died Sunday at age 95, was a beloved artist, teacher, author and builder of cultural institutions.

She is perhaps best known for co-founding the nation’s first black history museum, the DuSable Museum, with her late husband Charles in 1961. Before that, she had a hand in creating the South Side Community Art Center, which serves as a haven for budding and established artists to this day.

And she was a mentor to countless Chicagoans as an art teacher at DuSable High School in Bronzeville and as a professor of humanities at Kennedy-King College.

In these and other endeavors, Burroughs made it her life’s work to educate black Chicagoans — and the city as a whole — about the accomplishments of people whose names had been left out of the history books.

In the process, she demonstrated the impact one person can have on the lives of many.

“For her, it was always about moving for social justice and social change,” DuSable Museum CEO Carol Adams told us. “If she saw a void, she stepped in to fill it.”

That’s a legacy we can all learn from.

We also can honor Burroughs’ memory by supporting the institutions she built.

Burroughs, in a 2004 interview with WLS-Channel 7, explained her life’s mission this way:

“You’re born, and you live and you ought to leave something other than just a tombstone signifying that you were here.”

Margaret Burroughs left us so much more.

8189: Dr. Margaret Burroughs (1917-2010).

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

DuSable Museum founder, cultural leader Margaret Burroughs dead at 93

By Mary Houlihan, Staff Reporter

Margaret Burroughs, an artist, poet, educator and founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History, died early Sunday morning at her home surrounded by her family.

Mrs. Burroughs legacy reaches across the spectrum, and is a distinctive contribution to black culture.

“Every individual wants to leave a legacy; to be remembered for something positive they have done for their community,” Mrs. Burroughs once told Ebony magazine. “Long after I’m dead and gone, the DuSable Museum will still be here.”

Mrs. Burroughs, 93, was born in St. Rose, La., and had a lifelong passion for learning. She moved with her family north to Chicago where she attended Englewood High School. She would go on to attend Chicago Normal College, Chicago Teachers College and the School of the Art Institute.

The DuSable got its start in 1961 during a meeting at Mrs. Burroughs’s home. Originally called the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art, it was relocated in 1971 from Burroughs’ home to Washington Park and renamed for Haitian trader Jean Baptist Pointe DuSable, Chicago’s first permanent settler.

Mrs. Burroughs was the author of children’s books and volumes of poetry that spoke to the African-American experience.

Mrs. Burroughs taught art for more than 20 years at DuSable High School.

She worked in sculpture and painting but it was her skill as a printmaker that she became best known for. Her linoleum block prints featured images relevant to African-American culture.

At Mrs. Burroughs request, there will be no funeral service. A public memorial will be held after the holidays.