Will Maslow
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Will Maslow, (September 27, 1907 – February 23, 2007) was an American lawyer and civil rights leader who fought for full equality in a free society for Jews, blacks, and other minorities at positions he held in government and as an executive of the American Jewish Congress.
[edit] History
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Maslow came to the United States with his parents Raeesa and Saul Maslow (family name Masliankin) in 1911, and was raised primarily in Brooklyn, N.Y. After graduating from Boys High School Brooklyn, he won a state scholarship to Cornell University, where he wrote for and edited the student paper, The Daily Sun, organized the Liberal Club, and in 1929, graduated with an A.B. degree.
In 1929, Maslow received a law degree from Columbia University Law School in 1931. From 1931 to 1934, he was associated with the law practice of Arthur Garfield Hays--who was the general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, and he worked part-time as a reporter for The New York Times. He then became an associate counsel in the New York City Department of Investigation, under commissioner Paul Blanshard in Mayor La Guardia's administration. In 1937, he moved to Washington, D.C. and joined the National Labor Relations Board as Trial Attorney and, in 1941, as Trial Examiner. In 1943, he was named Director of Field Operations for the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC), the agency charged with uncovering and resolving employment discrimination in wartime and government procurement contracts, and he served in that position until 1945.
In August 1945, Maslow was named Director of the American Jewish Congress's newly established Commission on Law and Social Action, serving in that position until 1957, as well as the agency's general counsel, serving in that position continuously until 1984. He was Executive Director of the AJCongress from 1960 until 1972. After his retirement from AJCongress in 1984, he continued writing briefs, papers and volunteering through the late 1990s.
Under his counsel and leadership, AJCongress was often in the courts challenging discrimination and advocating civil rights[1] Maslow created the AJCongress’ 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[2].
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[3] 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. [4]"
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.
[edit] References
- '^ The Forward, Law as Social Action: A Life in Advocacy - How One Man Changed the Rules, NATHANIEL POPPER, January 9, 2004
- ^ Svonkin, Stuart (1997). Jews Against Prejudice:American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (Book Site), New York: Columbia University Press,. ISBN: 0231106386.
- ^ New York Times, Bias Survey Announced, February 18, 1947
- ^ New York Sun, Will Maslow, 99, Civil Rights Crusader, STEPHEN MILLER,, February 26, 2007
