Al Raby

Al Raby (born Feb. 19, 1933, Chicago, Ill.—died Nov. 23, 1988, Chicago) was an African American civil rights activist, cochair of the Chicago Freedom Movement in the 1960s and campaign manager for Harold Washington, who became Chicago’s first black mayor in 1983.

Raby, a grade-school dropout, taught himself to read when he was a teenager. He later graduated from Chicago Teachers College (1960) and attended the University of Chicago (1967–69). He taught in Chicago public schools before leading antisegregation boycotts of the schools during the 1960s. He persuaded Martin Luther King, Jr., to move his Southern Civil Rights Movement to Chicago for several months in 1966. He served in the Illinois constitutional convention (1970) and directed the Peace Corps in Ghana (1979–82). Returning to Chicago, he successfully managed Washington’s mayoral campaign and served on the Commission on Human Relations until shortly after Washington’s death in 1987.