Only a trickle of the curious took the time Monday to pass by the special collection of pictures and mementos of Harold Washington’s life on display at the downtown library that bears his name.
At Oak Woods Cemetery, few mourners came to visit the mausoleum of the mayor, who died of a heart attack.
It was the 9th anniversary of Washington’s death, an event that shocked the city in 1987 and led to a sea change in political fortunes–but now seems like a dim memory to many.
“I didn’t hear anything about it,” admitted Lakesha Scott, a senior at the City College branch named for Washington who was studying in the Harold Washington Library Center. “If it had meant so much for them to build a library and name a school in his honor, I would think they would make more of a show, more of a memorial or whatever.”
Not that the passing of Washington, Chicago’s first African-American mayor and an inspiration to a wide swath of its citizens, has been forgotten.
But enough time has elapsed that Chicago no longer aches so visibly over his loss.
Like John F. Kennedy, who was killed 33 years ago last Friday, or Mayor Richard J. Daley, who died of a heart attack 20 years ago Dec. 20, Washington has eased over time from being a fixture of the present to a figure of history.
Their accomplishments are still celebrated, but the details are getting a little fuzzy.
Over time, Chicago prefers to commemorate its leaders less in words than in bricks and mortar. Kennedy has an expressway, Daley a civic center, a plaza and a community college. Even twin water-intake cribs in Lake Michigan off North Avenue have been named for former mayors.
Indeed, the Washington library at State Street and Congress Parkway and Washington College at Wabash Avenue and Lake Street are typical of a city and region littered with roads, buildings and monuments honoring the great and sometimes not so great of generations past.
Some in Chicago, especially in the African-American community, see Washington as so inspirational and unique that they think more should be done to honor his legacy.
The city sponsored special memorials in his honor on the first few anniversaries after his death and again at the fifth anniversary. No formal municipal ceremonies have since been staged.
Even so, there were a smattering of ad hoc tributes Monday to Washington.
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An official of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization said his group would kick off a 10-day series of celebrations and begin work immediately on a far more elaborate memorial for the 10th anniversary of Washington’s passing.
Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) officiated at a Christmas tree lighting in Washington’s honor at 47th Street and King Drive and later held a commemorative service at her ward office.
“Harold Washington was the city’s first black mayor, and he stands as a beacon for the hopes and aspirations of a lot of young African-Americans,” Tillman said. “We really need to let our youth know that they do have a foundation.”
Tillman also awarded $50 savings bonds to four grade schoolers who won a Harold Washington essay contest she sponsored.
Early Monday, relatives of the mayor laid a wreath at the South Side cemetery where he is buried. The family tribute was supplemented by a single red rose, left by an anonymous mourner, and a second wreath from a South Side florist.
At midday, one of the few visitors to the grave was a former Washington aide who didn’t want his name used because he said he had to sneak away from work to pay his respects.
“He left a very, very fresh legacy in my mind and in my family’s mind,” the man said. “I just would hope that Harold Washington will not become an asterisk to the history of this city. He should be remembered as the man who opened up city government to all of us.”
Many Chicagoans will undoubtedly remember Washington that way.
Still, the dampening of attention focused on the anniversary of Washington’s death fits a common pattern, said historian Melvin Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“The half-life of memorials is about a half a generation, to put it in carbon-dating terms,” Holli said. “This is about 10 years. Our natural attention span is just about running out.”
Northwestern University historian Michael Sherry said time and circumstance combine to mute the emotional reaction to the passing of many pivotal figures in history.
“Cardinal (Joseph) Bernardin seems very powerful on our current Chicago scene, but it’s hard for me to imagine nine years from now that he’ll seem such a figure of transcendent importance that we’ll wonder why more isn’t being done to remember his death,” Sherry said.
Even before his death, Bernardin was honored in the Chicago way when his name was given to the new cancer wing at Loyola University Hospital in Maywood. It is the same facility where he received treatment for the pancreatic cancer that ultimately proved fatal.
There is, on occasion, some method behind the naming of public works projects after public figures. Washington, after all, had a ravenous appetite for books, so naming the central library after him seemed logical.
Often, however, matching projects with honorees can be a head-scratching experience.
A committee of civic leaders assembled after Daley’s death spent two years trying to pick a suitable memorial, entertaining ideas as diverse as renaming the Chicago River the “Daley Way” and erecting a statue of Daley as a Roman emperor.
Streets, indeed, are a common currency for political tribute. Kennedy got an expressway, as did the President Dwight Eisenhower and former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson. Mayor Anton Cermak got a road named after him, as did Long John Wentworth and William Ogden.
Tributes can be temporal. Consider Morris B. Fishbein, whose name graced the building that Chicagoans informally refer to as the morgue. Then came the retirement of longtime Medical Examiner Robert Stein. Now, the facility is named for him.
And sometimes, the tributes are so obscure that it’s questionable where the honor lies. There’s the Cermak pumping station on West Harrison Street, and the twin water cribs in Lake Michigan named after former Mayors William Dever and Carter Harrison.
However, a spokesman for the Water Department wasn’t immediately sure whether the Harrison crib was named for Mayor Carter Harrison I or his son, Carter Harrison II, also a mayor.