Mayor of Chicago

Harold Washington was our mayor when I was growing up. He was black, and grandfatherly. I didn't know a lot about him, other than that everybody seemed to like him a lot. We loved our mayor.

When he died of a heart attack in 1987, I was in fourth grade. They called a school assembly to announce the news. We were all shocked, and saddened. For most of us, death was still a foreign concept. It was kind of like our Kennedy moment.

After so many years, today was the first time I ever read Harold's Wikipedia page. Turns out he was a serious civil rights activist who overcame some ugly political challenges from the status quo. In other words, a hero.