Early Life and Family
Washington, the great-grandson of an American slave, was born in Dawson, Georgia and raised in Jamestown, New York. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Howard University and his law degree from Howard University School of Law. He was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
After graduating from Howard in 1948, Washington was hired as a supervisor for D.C.'s Alley Dwelling Authority. He worked for the authority until a 1961 appointment by John F. Kennedy as the Executive Director of the National Capital Housing Authority, the housing department of the then-Federally controlled District of Columbia. In 1966 he took the same position in the administration of New York City mayor John Lindsay.
His first wife, Bennetta Bullock, died in 1991. By this marriage he had one daughter, sociologist Bennetta Jules-Rosette. In 1994 he married Mary Burke.
Read more about this topic: Walter Washington
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or family:
“It was common practice for me to take my children with me whenever I went shopping, out for a walk in a white neighborhood, or just felt like going about in a white world. The reason was simple enough: if a black man is alone or with other black men, he is a threat to whites. But if he is with children, then he is harmless, adorable.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“Moons and years pass by and are gone forever, but a beautiful moment shimmers through life a ray of light.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“English people apparently queue up as a sort of hobby. A family man might pass a mild autumn evening by taking the wife and kids to stand in the cinema queue for a while and then leading them over for a few minutes in the sweetshop queue and then, as a special treat for the kids, saying “Perhaps we’ve time to have a look at the Number Thirty-One bus queue before we turn in.””
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1940)