5 Early Contributions of Black Americans to Chicago — Free Spirit Media

In the city’s early days, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, an African and French settler, started trading here in the 1780s. Historians now credit Du Sable with founding the city as well as fugitive slaves and freemen for developing the city’s first Black community.

Later Black Americans started shaping the culture of Chicago during the Great Migration from 1910 – 1970 when Black Americans fled the rural South in hopes of a better life in the urban north. 

That moment onward—from businesses, movements, art, music—Black Americans have continued to leave a heavy impact on the Windy City. 

As Black History Month concludes, let’s take a look back in history and continue to celebrate five early contributions Black Americans made in Chicago during the Great Migration. 

Did you know that Chicago is considered the birthplace of gospel music? Thomas Andrew Dorsey, a Black composer who is considered the “Father of Gospel Music” moved from Atlanta to Chicago in 1916, during the Great Migration. It was here that Dorsey not only coined the phrase “Gospel Songs,” but he also made a lot of the traditional songs that are still played at many churches on Chicago’s South and West Side services as well as around the world. Currently, the birth of the genre is celebrated every year during the Chicago Gospel Music Festival.