Here's Harold! (The Robot Edition)

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2015

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The DuSable Museum says — creepy or not — its Harold Washington robot will teach you a thing or two about the city’s first African-American mayor.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region,
0:06.2	and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.
0:14.1	Hey, this is Jesse Duke's Curious City audio producer, and I'm here to share a classic curious city story from 2015. It was reported
0:22.6	by Gabrielle Collins, who back then went by Gabrielle Wright. She was our intern. Since then,
0:28.9	she worked as a digital producer for three years at WB.EZ. And she just left us for a new
0:34.7	opportunity in Atlanta. We will miss her.
0:40.1	Anyway, stay tuned for some updates about the story.
0:43.4	But first, here's Gabby, along with a special guest.
0:46.9	Hey, I'm Gabrielle Wright, intern for Curious City.
0:49.2	Hi, I am Harold Washington.
0:52.3	And that's former Chicago mayor, Harold Washington. This is the story of my time as a public servant representing the good people of Illinois.
0:57.9	Well, not really Harold Washington.
1:00.6	It's the Harold Washington robot you'll find at Chicago's Dusabal Museum of African American History.
1:05.4	The real Harold Washington was a big deal, an AfricanAmerican state rep, congressman, and then Chicago's
1:13.2	first black mayor. He beat the city's political machine and inspired multiracial coalitions that
1:19.2	survived well beyond his death in 1987. The Harold Washington robot, not the man, inspired our
1:26.4	question, which comes from John Quinn.
1:29.1	John asked why the museum chose to use a Harold Washington robot.
1:33.7	We had just visited the DeSauvin Museum for the first time, and it was kind of amazing.
1:38.1	It was a really great exhibit, but the robot was a little creepy at times.
1:43.3	Creepy.
1:48.5	He's talking about those glassy eyes that follow you no matter where you stand,
	...

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