Two Firsts for Washington

Washington, D.C., was the first major American city with a Negro majority in its population. Last week it be came the first U.S. city to have a Negro chief executive.* Named by President Johnson as the first commissioner, or mayor, in the capital's reorganized city government was Walter Washington, 52, chairman of New York City's housing authority and one of the nation's top experts in that field.

By background and training, as well as color, Washington is well qualified to run D.C. A capital resident since his college and graduate days at Howard and American universities, he worked in the city's housing authority for 25 years, becoming chairman in 1961, a post he held until he moved to New York last year. In both cities, he was known for his ability to bend supposedly unbendable bureaucratic rules to get new low-income housing built, and to bring a sense of esthetics to that ugly duckling of American architecture. His wife Bennetta, now head of the Women's Job Corps, was formerly principal of Cardozo High School in one of the district's worst poverty areas.

Though he will have considerably broader authority than the city's cumbersome three-man executive board, Washington, who will govern with a yet to be appointed nine-man city council, will have less authority than most other big-city mayors. Not only will he owe his $28,500 job ($6,500 less than he made in New York) to the White House rather than the city's voters, but he must also pass his budget through Congress, most particularly the frequently unsympathetic House District Committee.

* Flint, Mich., has a Negro mayor, but his duties are largely ceremonial.

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