Editing Harold Washington (section)

===Ancestry===
The earliest known ancestor of Harold Lee Washington, Isam/Isham Washington, was born a slave in 1832 in North Carolina.<ref name=ancestry>{{cite book |last1=Brasfield |first1=Curtis |title=The Ancestry of Mayor Harold Washington |date=1993 |publisher=Heritage Books, Inc. |location=Bowie, Maryland |isbn=1556137508 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ancestryofmayorh00bras/page/7 7], 14–22 |edition=First |url=https://archive.org/details/ancestryofmayorh00bras/page/7 }}</ref> In 1864, he enlisted in the 8th United States Colored Heavy Artillery, Company L, in Paducah, Kentucky. Following his discharge in 1866, he began farming with his wife, Rebecca Neal, in Ballard County, Kentucky. Among their six children was Isam/Isom McDaniel (Mack) Washington, who was born in 1875. In 1896, Mack Washington married Arbella Weeks of Massac County, who had been born in Mississippi in 1878. In 1897, their first son, Roy L. Washington, father of Harold Washington, was born in Ballard County, Kentucky. In 1903, shortly after both families moved to [[Massac County, Illinois]], the elder Washington died. After farming for a time, Mack Washington became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, serving numerous churches in Illinois until the death of his wife in 1952. Reverend I.M.D. Washington died in 1953.<ref name=ancestry />