Judging from contemporary accounts, Chicago founder Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the Black trading post proprietor for whom local African American leaders propose renaming Lake Shore Drive, was a virtuous, cultured, likable, and good-looking man.

A 1790 account by trader Hugh Heward is the earliest record of DuSable’s trading post on the north bank of the Chicago River, just east of the present-day Michigan Avenue bridge, making him the first non-Native permanent settler of the area. Wisconsinsite Augustin Grignon wrote that his brother Perrish visited the settlement around 1794 and described DuSable as “a large man . . . pretty wealthy, [who] drank freely.”

In 1993 advocates approached Cook County president Toni Preckwinkle, then an alderman, and her Council colleague Madeline Haithcock about the name change, and the politicians proposed an ordinance to rename the south half of Lake Shore Drive. That would have required almost no address changes, since there were few residences or institutions on that stretch. But then-mayor Richard M. Daley was opposed, and the legislation died in committee.

But during the name-change hearings, indicted 14th Ward alderman Ed Burke, who helped lead the racially-charged opposition to Washington, called the name proposal “unprecedented” and “troubling,” arguing that it would be a major hassle for thousands of residents, whom Burke said would have to change their insurance records, drivers’ licenses, and other documents.

A Tribune editorial was strongly opposed, arguing, “Honor DuSable but keep Lake Shore Drive . . . it’s an institution.” The paper proposed instead renaming the Dan Ryan Expressway, which runs almost entirely through African American communities. That idea is reminiscent of how, following the assassination of Martin Lurther King Jr., then-mayor Richard J. Daley “honored” King, a champion of racial integration, by renaming a boulevard that ran exclusively through Black neighborhoods.

You’ll still be able to enjoy cruising the lakefront blasting Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah‘s rollicking ode to the roadway. Except that now when it comes to the lyric, “There ain’t no finer place to be, than running Lake Shore Drive,” many Chicagoans will argue that running DuSable Drive is even finer.  v