Real Estate Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Activist | BA Political Science, ’49
Dempsey Travis studied with Harold Washington at Roosevelt and later became a key fundraiser for his classmate’s mayoral campaigns. Travis also helped organize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1960 march on Chicago.
“I had never experienced the kind of camaraderie and spirit that existed [at Roosevelt] between white folks and blacks, it was unlike anything that was going on in the country,” Travis told the Chicago Tribune.
Travis founded several successful real estate and mortgage companies. As an activist and business owner, he fought redlining practices that discriminated against African American communities. He was also a prolific writer, the founder of the Urban Research Press, and an accomplished jazz musician.
