Walter Washington, ex-D.C. mayor, dies

By Michael W. Kahn
The Associated Press

	Walter Washington
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WASHINGTON — Walter Edward Washington, who became the first elected mayor of the nation's capital since the Civil War and the first black to head a major U.S. city, died yesterday. He was 88.

Mayor Washington, credited with defusing racial tensions and heading off major riots after the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had been hospitalized at Howard University Hospital for more than a week. He had been in failing health.

Many current and past officials praised his courage in shepherding the District of Columbia through turbulent times.

He was skilled in navigating the often treacherous political waters of a city with no official vote in Congress but that often finds its purse strings controlled by some of Congress' mercurial personalities.

"He was legendary for the way which he dealt with the president and the Congress," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's nonvoting delegate to Congress.

Mayor Washington was appointed mayor-commissioner of the District by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

At the time, the city was 70 percent black, but most senior positions in the municipal government were held by whites.

Five months after his appointment, King's assassination caused the city to explode in street violence. Mayor Washington later recalled that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover urged him to have looters shot. The mayor instead imposed a "don't shoot the looter" policy and walked the streets to speak with angry young people.

"I walked by myself through the city and urged them to go home and help the recovery of people who had been burned out," Mayor Washington told The Washington Post in 1999. His actions were credited with preventing major riots.

In 1974, after Congress approved home rule for the district, Mayor Washington became the city's first elected mayor in 104 years.

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