DuSable High School

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DuSable High School is a Bronzeville high school opened in 1934. It is named after Chicago's first non-native inhabitant and trader, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable. DuSable was first built to accommodate the growing Phillips High School in the 1930's, but instead the campus was renamed.

DuSable High was surrounded by the Robert Taylor Homes, a predominantly black housing project, once the largest in the US, though now almost completely demolished. The school primarily serves students from the Homes and the Bronzeville Area, explaining DuSable's current 99% black student enrollment.

It is one of the most famous schools in Chicago, due to the influence of music teacher Walter Dyett during the 1930s and 40s. Famous DuSable attendees/graduates include: Harold Washington, Redd Foxx, Maurice Cheeks,Gene Ammons, Nat Cole, and Don Cornelius. Dr. Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, a prominent African-American artist and writer and co-founder with her husband of the DuSable Museum of African-American History, taught at the school for 23 years.

The school is now divided into three smaller schools that operate inside of DuSable. They are the Bronzeville Scholastic Institute, the Betty Shabazz International Charter School, and the Williams Prep School of Medicine.

[edit] Other Information

The school's colors are red and black and their mascot is the Panthers.
The school was named Wendell Phillips High School until 1934.
The school motto is "Peace if possible, but justice at any rate." It is written in the schools' main auditorium above the stage.
The school once held an inner sanctuary that had many different animals, including peacocks, a goat, snakes, pigeons, chickens, and various other species.
Under the leadership of Physics teacher Bennett Brown, and with funding from a NASA education grant, DuSable became the first public high school in Chicago to have an Internet connection, in 1994.^[1]