Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Sunday, we remember Harold Washington, on the 20th anniversary of his death. The chicago's first African-American mayor had a profound effect on the city, and it's still felt today. And those of us around here in 1987, won't forget the day he died.

Chicago was overcast on November 25, 1987. At 11 a.m., the mayor was in his fifth floor office at City Hall.

Harold Washington had been talking with his press secretary Alton Miller when the conversation suddenly stopped.

"I thought he was trying to pick up something off the floor or something. He was lying with cheek against the desk," Miller said.

Mayor Washington had had a heart attack. He was rushed to nearby Northwestern Hospital where despite every effort to revive him, he was pronounced dead.

It was the day before Thanksgiving and Chicago was shocked. The city's television stations interrupted regular programming and broadcast continuous coverage of the mayor's life and death.

"He was an inspiration in our community," said Luis Gutierrez. "Our community voted overwhelmingly for him."

The death of Chicago's first black mayor hit African-Americans particularly hard.

His rise to power had felt like a religious crusade in the black community.

"Chicago has lost the very best it has ever had," said Danny Davis of Washington's passing.

James Montgomery was the city's corporation counsel for the first three years of Mayor Washington's term.

"When I got the call, it was like a shockwave and then the phone started to ring and I would call people and people would call me," Montgomery said. "And that whole was sort of a nightmare."

A daily, gregarious, bigger-than-life presence was gone.

"I want to reach out to every living soul in this city," Washington once said.

Despite that pledge of goodwill, Washington had many difficult days before and after he took office. In a city then divided by race, Washington on the campaign trail faced racist taunts. After he won the Democratic mayoral primary, some white Democrats instead supported his Republican opponent. Then, after he was elected, the City Council's white majority fought many of his initiatives.

Ed Vrdolyak was quoted as saying, "In America, 29 votes is more than 21 votes," during Washington's first 100 days in office.

The so-called "Vrdolyak 29" insisted Washington's administration was disorganized and that their fight with the mayor was about much more than race.

Ald. Dick Mell was a member of the opposition.

"I think as much as people wanted it as a racial divide, which it was, it was also power," Mell said.

"Council Wars" tarnished the city's image. Chicago was called "Beirut on the Lake." Still, through it all, Washington was confident and optimistic.

"Are the people of this city better off now that you're mayor?" Don Craig asked Washington during his first 100 days in office. To which, Washington said, "oh definitely."

Washington eventually initiated several government reforms. And his supporters said he made sure services were evenly distributed across the city. Perhaps his greatest legacy is that the current mayor, Richard M. Daley, has continued several of Washington's policies.

"When Richie Daley became mayor, one of the things that was very clear in his regime is that contrary to his father, you could not take the African-American community for granted and you could not disrespect the African-American community," Montgomery said.

And it's not a stretch to say Washington's legacy lives on in the career of one presidential candidate. Barack Obama says he came to Chicago in the early 1980s to be a community organizer, in part, because he was inspired by Washington.

Harold Washington ultimately gained control of the City Council and won re-election seven months before he died.

The racial strife in Chicago was starting to settle down. Even his adversaries admitted he was smart, warm and charming.

Today, Dick Mell looks back with regret over what might have been.

"The real problem and the real shame, he said he'd be mayor for 20 years," Mell said. "We never could see what would have happened that next term and the terms after that -- how he would have brought the city together, I believe," Mell said. 

Revrend Jesse Jackson and numerous other clergy led an interfaith memorial service Sunday for Washington at the First United Methodist Church in the Loop -- a short distance from City Hall where Washington presided as mayor from his election in 1983 until his death in 1987.

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