Harold Washington and Chicago's Schools Between Civil Rights and the Decline of the New Deal Consensus, 1955–1987

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Abstract
An early break in Harold Washington's political career came via a 1955 speech he delivered on equality of educational opportunity. Leaders of Chicago's Roosevelt University invited the popular alumnus (Washington was the first African-American class president) to speak at the tenth anniversary of the school's founding. The young Assistant State's Attorney shared the platform with such notables as former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and newly elected Mayor Richard J. Daley. In his speech, Washington remembered the university as “an experience in democratic living.” He viewed equal educational opportunity as the school's “cornerstone” because its admissions policy relied on objective examinations. At Roosevelt, Washington found “at all levels… people reaching out to fill whatever gaps [less privileged students] may have had in their backgrounds, which might retard them in their efforts… to be more useful citizens in our greater democracy.” Daley loved the crowd-pleasing speech and began grooming Washington to become the next Cook County prosecutor. Washington's career path, however, led elsewhere.