Should Chicago Rename Lake Shore Drive For City's Black Founder?

CHICAGO — Sometimes when I'm slipping on by on Lake Shore Drive, the road's namesake song gets stuck in my head.

You know the one. It starts, "There's a road I'd like to tell you about. Lives in my hometown. Lake Shore Drive the road is called."

Well, that might not last much longer, now.

Ald. David Moore says we should rename ol' LSD, and ward bosses are set to take a vote by spring.

All I know for certain: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Drive just doesn't have the same ring.

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But my love for the iconic 1971 tune by written by the late Skip Haynes doesn't make for the strongest argument against renaming Chicago's most scenic parkway after du Sable, a fur trader of African descent recognized as our city's founder.

On Thursday, Ald. Howard Brookins made good on a promise to Ald. Moore's proposal for public consideration. The City Council Transportation Committee chairman set a subject-matter hearing for Friday with plans to ultimately bring the matter up for a vote in April.

"It's about time that du Sable is honored in a more significant way. And I think everyone agrees about that," Brookins told me. "The question is whether this is the right way to do that. … I'd like to hear what the cons are for why du Sable shouldn't be honored this way."

Me, too. The debate could tell us a lot about how our city hasn't changed since the last time ward bosses pitched renaming Lake Shore Drive after du Sable.

In 1993, when then-Ald. Toni Preckwinkle first made the name-change pitch, it didn't stand a chance. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley's floor leader, Ald. Patrick Huels, dismissed the idea by accusing Preckwinkle of trying to win political points in advance of her 1995 re-election bid.

When the matter was considered in October 1993 by the City Council Transportation committee, the late Ald. John O. Steele publicly hoped the idea wouldn't stir a "race war," saying the issue goes to the "very grain of racism in this city, whether we like it or not," the Sun-Times reported back then.

Prominent white people testified. The general manager of Chicago's Hilton hotels declared Lake Shore Drive a defining characteristic and too valuable a public relations tool to discard — no disrespect to Chicago's founding father, of course.

Naming Lake Shore Drive after an individual encroached on the spirit of the city's forever-free-and-clear lakefront and would confuse tourists, according to Erma Tranter, the white woman who led Friends of the Parks.

After Tranter suggested having an annual festival in du Sable's honor as an alternative, the Sun-Times quoted African American Ald. Virgil Jones said, "I'm trying to figure out why some Europeans always have alternatives for African Americans."

Daley complained that he had more important things than a street name to deal with — in a year when 850 people were murdered and Chicago Public Schools were on the brink of shutting down due to a budget crisis — then he lined up votes to kill the idea.

"I have a crisis in the Board of Education, I have a crisis in crime. And we're into that?" Daley was quoted as saying in the Oct. 9, 1993, edition of the Sun-Times. "It costs a fortune. It costs taxpayers and property owners more money. The idea is not silly. But the cost — you start renaming streets, we'll have people renaming every street in Chicago. It would be impossible."

In some ways, the state of the city isn't much different from the Daley era.

So far this year, more than 720 people have been murdered in Chicago in a pandemic-plagued year marred by civil unrest, protests and looting across the city, a growing fiscal crisis and the shutdown of in-person instruction at city schools.

Even the cost renaming Lake Shore Drive could have on residents and businesses remains a contentious issue, Brookins said.

"We don't want to cost people any additional money right now," he said.

Moore on Thursday amended his proposal to call for renaming Outer Lake Shore Drive, keeping the iconic street name on the inner drive to spare residents from a mailing address change.

Coincidentally, former Ald. Jones made the same suggestion the day the proposed Lake Shore Drive name change died almost two decades ago.

In a city led by a Black woman mayor and a majority-minority City Council, this might be the right time to rebrand Chicago's most scenic parkway to mark the memory of our city's Black founding father.

Whether we like it or not, as former Ald. Jones said, the coming debate could speak to the very grain of racism in this city.

No matter how things turn out, Haynes' song got it right.

There ain't no road just like it anywhere to be found, no peace of mind, no finer place to be than running on Chicago's most scenic drive — no matter what we call it.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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