Editing Harold Washington (section)

===Early life and education===
Harold Lee Washington was born on April 15, 1922, at [[Cook County Hospital]] in Chicago,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aBqmMkHK8BIC&pg=PA1|title=Harold Washington: Political Pioneer|first=Carole|last=Marsh|date= 2002|publisher=Gallopade International|isbn=978-0635015044|access-date=May 26, 2018|via=Google Books}}</ref> to Roy and Bertha Washington. While still in high school in [[Lawrenceville, Illinois]], Roy met Bertha from nearby [[Carrier Mills, Illinois|Carrier Mills]] and the two married in 1916 in [[Harrisburg, Illinois]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brasfield |first1=Curtis |title=The Ancestry of Mayor Harold Washington |date=1993 |publisher=Heritage Books, Inc. |location=Bowie, Maryland |isbn=1556137508 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/ancestryofmayorh00bras/page/22 22–28] |url=https://archive.org/details/ancestryofmayorh00bras/page/22 }}</ref> At a time when most African Americans and Chicago residents supported the Republican Party, Roy Washington was one of the first black [[precinct captain]]s for the Chicago Democratic Party; he also worked as a lawyer and [[Methodist]] minister.<ref>''Hamlish Levinsohn, p. 246'', relates that Washington identified himself with his grandfather and father Roy's Methodist background. {{harvnb|Rivlin|1992|p=42}} notes that at age 4, Harold and his brother, 6, were sent to a private [[Benedictine]] school in Wisconsin. The arrangement lasted one week before they ran away from the school and hitchhiked home. After three more years and thirteen escapes, Roy placed Harold in Chicago city public schools.</ref> 

Bertha left the family, possibly to seek her fortune as a singer, when Harold was four.{{sfn|Rivlin|1992|p=42}} Harold Washington grew up in [[Douglas, Chicago#Bronzeville|Bronzeville]], a Chicago neighborhood that was the center of black culture for the entire Midwest in the early and middle 20th century. Edward and Harold stayed with their father, while Roy Jr. and Geneva were cared for by their grandparents. After attending St. Benedict the Moor Boarding School in Milwaukee from 1928 to 1932, Washington attended [[DuSable High School]], a new [[Racial segregation in the United States|racially segregated]] public school, from 1936 to 1939.<ref name="Illinois Library">{{cite web|url=https://omeka-s.library.illinois.edu/s/idhh/page/chicago-mayor-washington-early-life|title=Chicago Mayor Washington: Early Life|publisher=University of Illinois Library|access-date=May 10, 2025}}</ref> In a citywide track meet in 1939, Washington claimed first place in the 110-meter high hurdles and second place in the 220-meter low hurdles, playing a key role in the school's victory in the Chicago Public League Championship that year.{{sfn|Rivlin|1992|p=44}} 

Believing the coursework to lack rigor, Washington dropped out of high school before his senior year and joined the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] in 1939.<ref name="Illinois Library"/>{{sfn|Rivlin|1992|p=44}} He later worked at a meatpacking plant before his father helped him get a job at the [[U.S. Treasury]] branch in the city. There he met Nancy Dorothy Finch, whom he married soon after; Washington was 19 and Dorothy was 17.{{sfn|Rivlin|1992|p=44}}<ref name="Chicago Public Library"/>