Albert Raby was a Chicago public school teacher when he became active in the civil rights movement. Soon after, he was at the head of Chicago's local movement, as convenor of the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO). In this role, he served as the link between the national civil rights movement and local organizations, and had a great impact on the course of the movement.

Raby had been born into poverty in Chicago, and dropped out of school in eighth grade. However, he self-educated himself, and became involved in union activity. After a stint in the army, he earned his high school diploma and then went to school to become a teacher. He was teaching at an all-black school on the West Side of Chicago when he helped found Teachers for Integrated Schools (TFIS). TFIS selected him to be their delegate to the CCCO, and on January 11, 1964, he was appointed the organization’s convenor (Anderson and Pickering 129).

The CCCO was crucial in bringing the national civil rights movement to Chicago. When Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Chicago on his People to People tour, he recognized that the "CCCO represented the strongest indigenous civil rights movement in the North", [Ralph 39] and he appreciated the help he received during his three-day visit. When the movement was officially launched, Raby became its co-chairman.

As a member of the Agenda Committee, Raby was instrumental in the decision to choose open housing as the initial campaign for the movement. Even before the movement began, Raby had criticized the segregationist policies of the Chicago Real Estate Board. Along with King in July of 1966, he attended the initial meeting with Mayor Richard J. Daley where the demands of the movement were presented. Raby also served as a leader of open housing marches, using his position as a local leader to draw upon those in Chicago communities affected by housing segregation.

There was a significant rift between James Bevel , of SCLC, and Raby. When Raby agreed with the cancellation of a march on the Southwest Side because he feared that the focus was on white violence rather than housing discrimination, he was met with anger by Bevel.

After the summit negotiations between the movement, government, and the business community began, Raby was an effective negotiator. Accustomed to empty promises from the government, "he wanted to hear guarantees of real progress... when would blacks be served by realtors?" After the formal end of the open-housing marches and the departure of the SCLC from Chicago, Raby continued to lead the CCCO and its protests, none of which had much success. Raby died in the late 1980s.