Albert Raby

Educator and activist

• Born: February 19, 1933
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: November 23, 1988
• Place of death: Chicago, Illinois

A Chicago teacher and civil rights leader, Raby helped involve Martin Luther King, Jr., in the drive to desegregate Illinois’s public schools. Raby went on to manage the campaign of Harold Washington, who became Chicago’s first African American mayor in 1983.

Early Life

Albert Anderson Raby (RAY-bee) was born on February 19, 1933, in the Woodlawn area of Chicago. Although Raby dropped out before finishing elementary school, he taught himself to read and undertook his own private studies.

After he joined the Army, Raby became aware of the gaps in his education, and he worked at night to earn his high school diploma. In 1960, he received a teaching certificate from Chicago Teachers College (later renamed Chicago State University). He took classes at the University of Chicago from 1967 to 1969.

Life’s Work

After earning his teaching certificate, Raby taught seventh and eighth grades at the Hess Upper Grade Center. He began protesting discrimination in Chicago schools soon afterward, creating the antisegregation group Teachers for Quality Education. In 1962, he helped found the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, known as CCCO, and became the group’s convenor in 1964.

Raby’s chief opponents on the issue of school segregation were Mayor Richard J. Daley and Superintendent Benjamin Willis, who oversaw the system responsible for overcrowded and underfunded African American schools. Willis enforced the policies of Daley, who played down his own role in educational policy to the public, leaving Willis to take the brunt of criticism from civil rights advocates. The infamous portable classrooms that were set up in the playgrounds of overcrowded African American schools—while classrooms in nearby white schools sat empty—were derisively dubbed “Willis Wagons.” Raby emphatically opposed this system and spoke out (along with the Chicago Area Parents Council for Integrated Schools) against the false compromises that Willis offered. One such offer was 1962’s “Willis-Whiston Plan,” which proposed that students be allowed to transfer from overcrowded schools to underpopulated ones if they initiated the process themselves; Raby and his colleagues rejected the plan, insisting that the city itself take responsibility for the schools.

As head of the CCCO, Raby was instrumental in inviting Martin Luther King, Jr., to travel to Chicago in 1966 to push for school integration. The CCCO created a coalition with King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and organized a series of marches to address school and housing segregation. However, opposition to the protests was violent: King was struck by a brick during one march, and masses of segregation supporters frequently appeared to threaten marchers. Concerned about inciting a riot, King agreed to Daley’s request that he cancel a proposed march. After a few months, King returned to the South. Raby continued to stage protests but met with little success.

In 1970, Raby was elected to the Illinois Constitutional Convention, where he played a major role in drafting its Bill of Rights. From 1979 to 1982, he worked for the Peace Corps in Ghana. After returning to Chicago, Raby became campaign manager for Harold Washington, a former congressman running for mayor of the city. With Raby’s help, Washington became the first African American mayor in Chicago’s history. Raby himself ran for Washington’s vacant congressional seat but lost in the Democratic primary.

Beginning in 1986, Raby ran the Chicago Human Relations Commission, an organization founded to oppose discrimination. He had a lifelong interest in preserving the environment and served on the board of directors of Citizens for a Better Environment. He also was cochairman of a Chicago group of Jewish and African American leaders that attempted to defuse racial conflicts. In his later years, Raby worked in public relations as a partner in the Haymarket Group. He suffered a fatal heart attack on November 23, 1988, at the age of fifty-five.

Significance

Raby gained national prominence for his protests against public school segregation in Chicago and his role in Washington’s mayoral campaign. He remained an activist throughout his life, fighting discrimination in the classroom and outside it. In 2004, Al Raby High School for Community and Environment opened in Chicago.

Bibliography

Anderson, Alan, and George Pickering. Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. This comprehensive history of the Civil Rights movement’s efforts to reform the Chicago school system provides a great deal of information on Raby’s role in the struggle.

“Rites Held in Chicago for Albert Raby, 55, Civil Rights Leader.” Jet 75, no. 11 (December 12, 1988). Extensive obituary that provides a solid overview of Raby’s life and career.

Terry, Don. “Albert Raby, Civil Rights Leader in Chicago with King, Dies at 55.” The New York Times, November 25, 1988. This brief obituary outlines Raby’s major accomplishments in the Civil Rights movement and the struggle to desegregate Chicago schools.