Harold Washington Party

The Harold Washington Party was founded in Chicago to represent the interests of the City's African-American population who felt disenchanted with the mainline Democratic Party. The party was named for Chicago's first Black mayor, Harold Washington, who died before the party was created. It nominated candidates for mayor and several other offices in Cook County. In 1990, a court decision denied Harold Washington Party nominees ballot access, which was reported a boon to the Democratic Party slate. Later, most of these officially became nonpartisan in the mid 1990s.