Editing Walter Washington (section)

{{Short description|Mayor of the District of Columbia from 1975 to 1979}}
{{Other people}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name         = Walter Washington
|image        = walterwashington.jpg
|office       = [[Mayor of the District of Columbia]]
|term_start   = January 2, 1975
|term_end     = January 2, 1979
|predecessor  = ''Himself'' {{small|(Mayor-Commissioner)}}
|successor    = [[Marion Barry]]
|office1      = [[List of mayors of Washington, D.C.|Mayor-Commissioner of the District of Columbia]]
|president1   = [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]<br />[[Richard Nixon]]<br />[[Gerald Ford]]
|term_start1  = November 7, 1967
|term_end1    = January 2, 1975
|predecessor1 = [[Walter Nathan Tobriner]] {{small|(President of the Board of Commissioners)}}
|successor1   = Himself {{small|(Mayor)}}
|birth_name   = Walter Edward Washington
|birth_date   = {{birth date|1915|4|15}}
|birth_place  = [[Dawson, Georgia]], U.S.
|death_date   = {{death date and age|2003|10|27|1915|4|15}}
|death_place  = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.
|resting_place= [[Lincoln Memorial Cemetery (Suitland, Maryland)]]
|party        = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
|spouse       = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Bennetta Bullock]]|1942|1991|end=died}}
* {{marriage|[[Mary Burke Washington|Mary Burke]]|1994}}
}}
|children     = 1
|education    = [[Howard University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]], [[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]])
}}
'''Walter Edward Washington''' (April 15, 1915 &ndash; October 27, 2003) was an American civil servant and politician.  After a career in [[public housing]],<ref name=":1" /> Washington was the [[List of mayors of Washington, D.C.|chief executive of the District of Columbia]] from 1967 to 1979, serving as the first and only Mayor-Commissioner of the District of Columbia from 1967 to 1974, and as the first [[Mayor of the District of Columbia]] from 1975 to 1979.

He was the first African-American mayor of a major city in the United States, and in 1974 became the capital's first popularly elected mayor since 1871.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Civil Rights Tour: Political Empowerment - Walter Washington, Mayor-Commissioner - 408 T Street NW|url=https://historicsites.dcpreservation.org/items/show/1044?tour=12&index=74|access-date=2021-05-15|website=DC Historic Sites|language=en}}</ref> Congress had passed a law granting home rule to the capital, while reserving some authorities. Washington won the first mayoral election in 1974, and served from 1975 until 1979.