Revised proposal to rename Outer Lake Shore Drive for DuSable on road to approval

Lake Shore Drive, Chicago’s showcase lakefront boulevard, could be renamed in honor of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago’s first permanent settler, under a revised ordinance that had languished in committee for more than a year.

Transportation Committee Chairman Howard Brookins (21st) agreed Thursday to hold a “subject matter hearing” on the ordinance Friday — and schedule an up-or-down vote “on or before April” — after Ald. David Moore (17th) agreed to limit the scope of his renaming proposal to minimize the cost.

“I did hear from residents on the North Side and even on the South Side of Chicago. What they did not want us to do is the whole Lake Shore Drive. They said, ‘Why don’t you consider doing just the outer drive?’ ” Moore told the Sun-Times.

“I listened to them. My original proposal said Lake Shore Drive. We amended it to ... just the Outer Drive from Hollywood all the way down to 67th Street, so the only addresses that would be impacted are the harbors. No businesses and no residents would be impacted.”

In 1993, then-aldermen Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and Madeline Haithcock (2nd) joined forces on a similar proposal, but then-Mayor Richard M. Daley put the kibosh on the idea.

“The idea is not silly. But, the cost,” Daley said at the time. “You start renaming streets, we’ll have people renaming every street in Chicago. It would be impossible.”

Eight years later, then-Ald. Ed Smith (28th) proposed a different DuSable honor — naming City Hall after him — only to meet the same fate.

But in the time since, the political landscape has changed dramatically.

The Council is now majority-minority, with 20 Black aldermen and 13 Hispanic members. The Socialist Caucus has six members.

More importantly, the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers has triggered a racial reckoning in Chicago and across the nation that has prompted the Council to create a reparations subcommittee charged with finding a way to make amends to “descendants of enslaved Africans” living in Chicago.

Against that backdrop, Moore said Thursday he’s not at all surprised an ordinance that has languished in committee since October 2019 may finally be on the road to Council approval.

“What people don’t realize is the whole rioting — I shouldn’t even say rioting — the whole civil unrest was bigger than George Floyd. It’s the fact of constantly ignoring not only contributions of Black people, but also the economics as it relates to Black people,” Moore said.

“That’s what really got people fired up. George Floyd was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

DuSable already has a high school, a museum and a new Park District harbor named in his honor. And a park named for him is still being developed near Navy Pier.

But Moore said that’s not enough for one of the city’s most prominent historical figures.

“People from the North Side and other parts of the community don’t even come to the South Side. Most people don’t even go past barely 35th Street. Sometimes, not even past Roosevelt. They haven’t even gotten to the DuSable Museum. They haven’t even gotten to DuSable High School,” he said.

“This is not just a Black thing. This is a city thing because this is the founder of our city. And it shouldn’t even be an issue. I don’t care if you wanted to name buildings or multiple streets. This is the founder of Chicago. It’s almost a slap in the face, really, that his recognition isn’t larger than what it is.”

Preckwinkle is now president of the Cook County Board.

She agreed with Moore that Floyd’s death has helped remove the roadblocks she encountered trying to rename Lake Shore Drive 27 years ago.

“This is an extraordinary moment in our history. George Floyd was not the first Black person murdered by the police. And he won’t be the last,” Preckwinkle said Thursday.

“The city was a Native American settlement before it was anything. But in terms of its non-Native population, DuSable was clearly important in the ... settlement of this area. And we haven’t, as a city — for, I believe, racist reasons — acknowledged his importance to our history or properly honored him.”

Congress Parkway was renamed for Ida B. Wells, the crusading journalist and civil rights leader, but only after Italian American groups demanded that Balbo Drive be spared.

Ald. Sophia King (4th), chairman of the Council’s Progressive Caucus, led the charge on that renaming campaign and joined Moore as co-sponsor of the proposal to rename Lake Shore Drive.