DePaul hosted the inaugural screening of the national cut of the ground-breaking documentary “DuSable to Obama: Chicago’s Black Metropolis” to help kick off Black History Month.

Co-produced by documentary filmmakers Daniel Andries and Barbara Allen, the film examines the extraordinary impact that Chicago’s African-American community has had on the world through the voices of its scholars, business leaders, politicians, community activists and other leading citizens. The documentary opens with Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, who set up a trading post in what is now the city of Chicago in the 1780s, and continues through to the 2008 election of Barack Obama, who became the 44th president of the United States.

The screening at the Chicago Cultural Center on Jan. 26 was followed by a panel discussion that featured Allen; Gail Baker, dean of the College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, who wrote the documentary; Haki Madhubuti, DePaul’s Ida B. Wells-Barnett Professor; and James Wolfinger, associate professor of history and education at DePaul.

Allen, a producer and editor at WTTW-Channel 11 and founder of Middle Passage Productions, Inc., a non-profit media enterprise, said during the panel discussion that “Black history is the missing piece of American history. We have a tendency to put things in separate categories, but this is a story of all people.”

Madhubuti, a poet and book publisher, said it made sense for the documentary to use Chicago as its geographic focus. “Chicago is the center of many independent black institutions, including the arts, theatre and dance. We have boldness in Chicago that just does not stoop to begging.”

View photos of the event