HAROLD WASHINGTON (1922-1987)
Harold Washington, the first African American mayor of Chicago, Illinois, was born on April 15, 1922, to Roy Washington, a lawyer, Methodist minister and one of the first black precinct captains in Chicago. Washington’s mother Bertha Washington was a well-known singer in the city.
Washington attended segregated public schools including the newly completed DuSable High School where he set records as a track star. Despite that success, Washington dropped out of high school at the end of his junior year and worked in a meatpacking plant until his father helped him obtain a job at the U.S. Treasury office in Chicago. There he met Dorothy Finch, his future wife. The couple married in 1941 when Harold Washington was 19 and Dorothy was 17. They divorced ten years later.
In 1942 Washington was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent overseas as part of a segregated unit of the Air Force Engineers, then part of the U.S. Army. Washington served three years in the South Pacific and rose to the rank of First Sergeant.
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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Friday, April 15th 2022 at 12:08PM
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