The Daily Herald invited several black people who live or work in DuPage County to share their views about the African-American experience here since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death.

The essays will appear this week in Neighbor.

Glennette Tilley Turner is an author and former school teacher who lives in Wheaton. She has written extensively on the African-American experience, including "The Underground Railroad in DuPage County, Illinois" and "Take a Walk in Their Shoes," a collective biography with skits featuring 14 notable African Americans. She is a board member of the Graue Mill and Museum and DuPage County Historical Society.

Our family moved to DuPage County in late spring 1968. I taught elementary school in Wheaton District 200.

Since retiring in 1988, I have published three children's books and been a student-teacher supervisor for National-Louis University.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had visited Naperville and spoken at North Central College some years before we arrived. While in the Chicago area, he had made an effort to bring about open housing throughout the metropolitan area.

He challenged municipalities to live up to their potential to nurture and be enriched by a racially diverse population. At the time, that meant the integration of African-American families. It is far broader now.

The black families that were scattered around DuPage County at that time sought to simultaneously become part of their new communities, to establish links among themselves, and to communicate consumer information.

Whenever adult family members chanced to meet in the grocery store or on the North Western train, they'd introduce themselves and seek answers to such questions as "Have you found a store that sells greens (or other food or cosmetic items)?"

Local businesses had not yet recognized the monetary value of the black consumer. Other institutions, such as museums and newspapers, also pretty much ignored the historical or contemporary presence of African-American residents.

This was true even in Wheaton, which recently had passed a Fair Housing law and been listed as one of LOOK magazine's All-American Cities.

Actually blacks have had a long-term presence in DuPage. Exactly how long depends on one's definition.

Some would say that since DuPage originally was part of Cook County, and Cook County was formed as the result of the importance of Chicago as the gateway to the West, and a Haitian man named Jean Baptiste Point Du-Sable is recognized as the first settler in Chicago ...

The presence and participation of black men in the Civil War are documented in photographs housed at the DuPage County Historical Society and reprinted in the bicentennial history "DuPage Discovery," and in "The Underground Railroad in DuPage County, Illinois."

Some old photographs of Wheaton College student groups are interracial. And the Underground Railroad operated at the college and other locations in many towns around the county.

Through the years, African Americans have contributed to DuPage communities in many ways. In the early 1900s, they helped in construction of the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin railway tracks.

More recently, the Sublett, Thomas and Gibson families operated waste disposal businesses. I've been told that at least one of these businesses served several towns.

A number of people worked in domestic service. As a youngster, Charles Crutcher, who was on the police force when we arrived, had lived in what is now downtown Wheaton. Velma Edwards, Stella White and Virginia Clair were caterers. I've been told that a black man built the bandshell in Wheaton.

I know from first-hand experience that there were teachers in area schools. …