Will Maslow

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Will Maslow in the 1940's

Will Maslow, (September 27, 1907 – February 23, 2007) was an American civil rights leader and former executive director of the American Jewish Congress who fought for the equal rights of blacks and other minorities in the United States.

1 History
- 1.1 Civil Rights History
2 References
3 Additional Resources

[edit] History

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, to Raeesa and Saul Maslenkov. Moved to United States in 1911 and settled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side before moving to Chicago^[1]. Maslow attended Cornell University, and wrote for the university’s student paper, The Daily Sun.

[edit] Civil Rights History

Will Maslow in the late 1960's

In 1929, Maslow went back to New York City and received his law degree from Columbia University Law School. He took a job as an associate counsel in the New York City Department of Investigation and a trial attorney at the National Labor Relations Board.

He became general counsel to the American Jewish Congress 1945 and served until 1960, when he was appointed executive director. He served as such until 1972. He then served again as its general counsel until his retirement in the early 1980s, when he continued writing briefs, papers and volunteering for the AJCongress through the mid 1990s. Under his counsel and leadership, AJCongress was often in the courts challenging discrimination and advocating civil rights^[2] Maslow created the AJongress’ Commission on Law and Social Action and with it, filed a discrimination suit against Columbia University, demanding that it change its discriminatory admissions quotas. He also filed a suite against Stuyvesant Town Housing Co. because of its racial policies against black tenants^[3].

In 1947, he fought for strict adherence to the Ives-Quinn Law which forbade discrimination in employment, charging that job agencies were disregarding this law en masse, 88% in fact^[4] He negotiated with Gertz, a department store in Jamaica, Queens, to hire blacks for the first time. "The negroes' fight against discrimination in employment, housing, education is part of the struggle for Jews for equality of opportunity in those fields. ^[5]"

He was the first director of President Roosevelt's Committee on Fair Employment Practices^[6].

Maslow helped organize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. and the Little Rock school discrimination case in the 1950s.