Harold Washington filed his mayoral petitions on December 6, 1982 with the city clerk. His declaration to run for mayor was unprecedented because it was hard to imagine an African-American elected mayor of one of the most racist cities in the United States. Washington and his few supporters believed that he could topple the white mayor seat of Chicago. Harold Washington was a firm believer in the First Gospel of Saint Matthew and its no coincidence that people say his nominating petitions were taller than ten bibles.

He was the ultimate underdog not only because he had no campaign slogan, no money to run a campaign, and no bank credit that would have let him rent office space for those who would volunteer for his campaign. Just the fact that running against the multi-million dollar Jane Byrne and R

At one speech Harold Washington told the audience that he was sick and tired of being called the black candidate. He didn’t want to be called intelligent because it was obvious he was intelligent. After his fiery speech the audience gave a thunderous applause to acknowledge that he was right.

Many who knew Harold Washington as an even-tempered person felt that he was being too much of a gentleman by not fighting back and getting angry. On Thursday, April 7, five days before the election, Epton’s campaign reached a low point that Washington could no longer contain his fury. The thing that upset him the most was that a flyer was circulating portraying him as child-molester.

On Tuesday, February 22, the voting began. A funny thing happened though, the southbound Dan Ryan El trains stopped running without any reasons. The voter turnout during the day in the black wards had been excellent. Around 5 o’clock, just as people were getting off to work to rush back home to vote, they were stranded. Thousands of people could not get home in time to cast their ballots.

Some topics in this essay:
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