Al Raby, 55; Civil-Rights Activist

CHICAGO — Al Raby, a prominent civil-rights activist and former top aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King, collapsed at his office and died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday night, a hospital official said. He was 55.

Raby was brought to Northwestern Memorial Hospital by ambulance at 7:50 p.m. CST “in full cardiac arrest,” said hospital spokesman James Henri. He was pronounced dead at 8:10 p.m.

Raby had served as commissioner of the city’s Commission on Human Relations under the late Mayor Harold Washington who, ironically, died on Thanksgiving eve in 1987.

Raby was active in the civil-rights movement during the early 1960s and helped lead King’s open-housing marches in the urban North.

“Al Raby was probably the single biggest reason that Dr. Martin Luther King came to Chicago,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. “Al helped to lead the open housing movement in the city.”

In 1983, he managed Washington’s successful campaign for mayor, and subsequently ran in the Democratic primary for Washington’s 1st District congressional seat.

Raby lost and Washington appointed him to the Human Relations panel.

Raby, a former schoolteacher, was a delegate to the 1970 state constitutional convention, an aide to Democratic Illinois Gov. Dan Walker, and a Peace Corps official in Ghana during the Carter Administration.