Helmsley Lecture Series; Morris Milgrim

I'm honored to be asked to take part in the Helmsley lecture series, established to reduce barriers that separate different races, creeds, and nationalities. Not only because of the high- eminence of Mr. Helmsley -- but of the high regard I hold for Brandeis. Which in 15 years has done what has taken many universities a century -- -- not to achieve. This is in line with the times. When change is the *only* constant we have. Bill Goldsmith asked me to give no formal address, but to give a case- a case history of my activities, including the evolution of my thinking on the problem. Obstacles faced on the initial effort and appraisal of the total experience. I was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Son of a an immigrant from Russia.

My father was a salesman a customer a peddler sold dry goods door to door. His life revolved around his synagogue. My mother, tall and attractive. Built her life around her home. I was the youngest of six children. My four sisters and I would listen wide eyed to my eldest sister Ida, tell if how the family escaped in 1913 from a Russia torn by pogroms. My father had already come to America in 1912. I wasn't born yet. And earn some money and sent tickets to bring the family. When the tickets arrived the family had to across the Polish border, illegally. A tall servant of a distant relative carried each one of the family my mother and four children across the river. And when she was, he was caring the fourth. The border guards hearing a

child cry came and fired over my sister's head, ordering the servant to stop. Terrified, Ida was carried back. Family was separated for several nights until bribery managed to reunite the family again. I don't think my mother ever got over as a fantastic experience. I said four sisters, 3 of them, with 3 sisters and 1 brother. My fourth sister wasn't born yet just as I. And uh, At 310 East Houston street, New York. We lived in a tenement house. Fourth floor, I remember. All 4 of my sisters became garment workers. Members of Local 22 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. And 1 by 1, they left the trade to go to college or get married. One is still

left a member of Local 22. Soon ready for pension. I used to go with my sisters to socialist picnics. Their swains would carry me on their shoulders at the age of 6 and 7 to Valhalla. Beautiful name for a picnic ground near New York City and I would listen to lectures. I remember at 7 writing a letter to Eugene Victor Debs, telling him how much I hated the capitalists and getting a response from his brother, Theodore. Was a parable to the water tank and uh, I considered myself a socialist from the time I was... Seven All right. And I remember a twelve wailing Norman Thomas and nineteen twenty eight at his- at one of his campaign rallies, waiting downstairs to talk to him about my letter from Debs about his campaign. And at 16, I joined the Socialist Party in

Hempstead, Long Island because there were no young people socially to join, and how they broke the rules, I don't know, but they did and I was a full fledged member. At 16 leaving it at 17 to join Young People Socialists League at City College and to become secretary of the Student League for Industrial Democracy. The socialist student organization founded 1907 by Upton Sinclair and Jack London as the Intercollegiate Social Society. I remember Joe Lash handing me 25 application blanks for the student LID, when I wanted 50, and skeptical that I would get them gives them used. I think we got over 100 members before we were through. But before we were through, I was expelled from City College in 1934 along with 20 others for fighting fascism but that wasn't the popular thing to do. We opposed an official reception to Italian Fascist students and uh, uh, for our opposition or suspended for protesting the suspension of street corner meetings, we were expelled. And, uh, it was a good thing for me, Dean Gottschall reported,

I got a trip to Europe out of it. To World Student Congress in Brussels and it was probably as a result of that, I met my wife because in absentia, as a Student LID, elected me to its national executive committee and at the first meeting of the National Executive Committee held at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and the spring of 1935. A skinny lad of 19, met the Secretary of the Antioch College student LID, Grace Smelo. And uh, I suggested she come to New York for the summer school for Student LID and when she did come, I courted her there. And finally hitchhiking 600 once even 800 miles to Indianapolis, where she was working in a cannery, as part of the co-op jobs, and Antioch College, continued a 2 year courtship with it which ended in marriage in 1937 on th-, on her graduation day at the Antioch College campus.

And uh, we moved into Newark for a little while. And the Christmas, of rather the fall of that year, the CIO asked the students at the University of Newark to help them establish the right to distribute leaflets in Jersey City. Grace and I answered the summons along with other students. 6 AM one cold winter morning, I remember meeting David Clendenon and Sidney Hertzberg on the train to Jersey City. And uh, The police started arresting my wife and then decided they didn't want the trouble of having women in jail and they just took men, and I ended up in jail along with a group of dear friends of mine from the university. And uh, for 36 hours this Jersey City bailiff would not let himself be found while uh, we stayed behind bars. The subject of pity by the garage, the petty

thieves, that were our companions kept feeding us oranges and commiserating with us. And uh, finally the bailiff was discovered. We were out on bail and I found myself offered a $25 a week job fighting mayor Hague. The conditions were that my wife go on the payroll too, and she would be Assistant Secretary of The Workers Defense League of New Jersey and I'd be Secretary. And uh, I quit a $35 a week job to do that. Uh, I still was finishing up at the University of Newark. And to the delight of my friends there, including Frank Kingdon, the president of University who was happy that I was bearding the lion in his den, I moved to Jersey City. No other place than 138 Baldwin Avenue which Roger Baldwin thought was very funny. An uh, carried on about it for a couple of years with Mayor Frank, I am the law, Hague. It was an interesting period and um, ended with the civil liberties battle won. Uh, interesting enough the

only times I've ever had any attacks or physical violence was really in that fight against Hague. Uh, my life has been rather peaceful and building integrated communities. Uh, in '39 I moved out of Jersey City to New York, where I became Assistant National Secretary of the Workers Defense League. For those who are not familiar with it, the WDL, or Workers Defense League, was founded in 1936 by labor rights, liberals, and socialists to prevent the communists from capturing all the civil rights cases. And uh, to provide the labor movement with a nonpartizan Defense Agency. We were the official Defense Agency of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Later the National Agricultural Workers Union, National Farm Labor Union, Part of the AFL-CIO now, I think it's amalgamated [indecipherable? workman], H.L.

Mitchell and J.R. Butler were the leaders then. I used to go down to Mississippi and Arkansas, to Florida and elsewhere fighting involuntary servitude. And uh, Along with others, with defending this union we had cases involving occasionally members of the Garment Workers Union or other local Unions struggling for the right to exist in the south or elsewhere. And every now and then we get a strange, unusual case of a worker, not a member of a union in trouble. One of those, was a case of Odell Waller, a negro sharecropper. Who was charged with slaying his farmer landlord in Gretna, Virginia. About 1940, '41. And the Workers Defense League undertook, to save his life. And for about a year and a half we waged a campaign to

save a man I'd never seen. I couldn't see him legally because only relatives and lawyers can get into jail and it wasn't easy to claim I was a relative. I remember once we had a situation where Alton Levy, a soldier, was in jail in the guardhouse because he was alleged of call his general a drunken s.o.b. [derogatory slang] and incidentally to Jim Crow on the Armed Services. And there I got in to see him by asking Rev. Lawrence T. Hosie,, then chairman of our board, whether all men were brothers and said, 'Yes, all men are brothers', so I said, "Well then I'm certainly a relative." He says well I guess you are and so I. Got in to see him because I was a relative. When when I got in to see Al [Alton], the general heard about it he was so furious, he put Al in solitary confinement, which gave us the excuse to go to the White House, and the president's response, according to the report was, well, uh, all these generals call me a drunken s.o.b. [derogatory slang] and they, I mean a crippled s.o.b. and they get away with it. I said I don't

see why Private Levy should be in the guardhouse for calling the general's drunken s.o.b's and he gave orders he was to be released. They released him so fast, he didn't know what hit him. At any rate. I couldn't see Odell Waller. But Pauli Murray, a poet, member of and field sector of the Workers Defense League, was able to be a relative and she got in to see him along with our lawyer John [Finnerty?] and others. But all our efforts to save the life of this sharecropper failed when the governor, Colgate Darden, was threatened with a race riot if he freed this man or commuted sentence to life in prison. And Odell Waller was executed in '42. I remember being the only white man, along with 2500 negroes, at a funeral where, I'm afraid, any other white man from the neighborhood might have been

quite unwelcome. And I was moved deeply by hearing the Gretna negro leadership thank the Workers Defense League for having taught them how to fight. I was so disturbed though, by my failure to save his life, that I suggested that the Workers Defense League become a new abolitionist organization to fight for full equality in all walks of life. This was not agreed. But I did move the Workers Defense League into a more vigorous role in fighting for fair employment practices and I personally worked closely with Phil Randolph on the FEPC. The Committee for National, for permanent FEPC, uh, helping with Madison Square Garden rallies and things that sort and Paying more attention generally to the fight for full equality. Another result of the Odell Waller battle was that Pauli Murray decided to to become a lawyer. And graduated cum laude from Howard.

Now I was getting her doctorate at Yale. The Odell Waller case, however, probably played a very important role in turning me towards building integrated housing. One other thing did it. Uh, 1946, I saw a leaflet issued by the Youth Committee for Democracy, a pacifist group in Philadelphia, entitled no homes for negro workers in Philadelphia. And I asked questions and discovered, to my shock, that there were absolutely no new houses available to negroes in Philadelphia, that the building industry of which my father-in-law was a part, in the north, as well as in the south, was building houses basically for whites only except in rare cases where there was the negroes only. And this knowledge of the unwritten law hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew there were ghettos this is one thing, but to know that no matter how hard a person

worked, one couldn't buy houses in the open market was quite a shock. And my father-in-law had been begging me to come into his firm for many years. And so when he asked me again I said, "Pop, I won't join your firm to build houses for white people only." He said, 'Well, if you'll join the firm I'll let you build houses for everybody.' We shook hands on it and in 1947, I resigned as national secretary the Workers Defense League and joined his firm. And for 4 1/2 years, built housing for whites only with my conscience hurting. Retooling, in 1952, year after he died, to build only integrated communities. I use the term retooling advisedly because it was quite different to sources of money, of land, and customers were not the same as they were for all white housing. My first venture, in the field of integrated housing, was in a suburb of Philadelphia called Concord park. But I didn't get there

for 17 months after I decided to build integrated communities. The problem was getting together the risk capital to go along with our family firms modest funds. When I went to negroes the suspicion was so thick I could cut it with a knife. They seemed to be saying to me what does that "ofay" want. I almost wept each time I left the home of the negro leader for the office. None of them bothered calling Philip Randolph or Roy Wilkins or Walter White who was then alive and check my bona fides. I just didn't think integration was on the agenda for the day white leadership was not a great deal better, although it was somewhat easier to work with. There are a fair number of whites who offered very modest sums, inadequate to start anything, although I almost started with a batch of very tiny amounts offered by very wonderful people. I remember Phil Randolph coming through with a pledge of $50 US. Finally I was almost ready to start with a group of tiny

pledges put together, when some people said, 'We're convinced. We'll put some substantial funds, and by that meaning 5 and $10,000 more. I sent some letters out. and I spoke to friends. We raised $150,000 from 65 citizens. And started Concord park in Greenbelt Knoll. Concord Park Incorporated. Greenbelt Incorporated. Two corporations to build two separate developments, 1 of 139 houses in uh, Philadelphia, in Conc-, in Trevose, just outside Philadelphia. 19 houses in Philadelphia called Greenbelt Knoll, where I now live. For, at Concord park we uh, built 12,000 to 16,000 dollar houses, 3 bedroom one bath houses, a quarter acre lots and had them tastefully decorated by Beatrice West. She did a grand job for us and I'm not

sure we would have succeeded without that. But it wasn't that that made a succeed it was a series of accidents. Frankly, I wouldn't have gotten started in integrated housing if I'd been smart enough to know how tough it was to start. But I wasn't. And uh, the problem was not lack of demand, demand was tremendous. In the first 10 weeks, after we opened our model in August of '54, we had 50 negro sales and 10 white sales. And the whites started dropping out one by one as they learned how many Negro sales we had. And, the last straw for me, and understanding the problem, was when one of the key White Liberals, an employee of Fellowship House said, 'it's no great experiment to be the only white family in all Negro community.' And uh, at that point I decide to accept the recommendation of Jane Reinheimer, the housing opportunities director of the American Friends Service Committee,

and to urge a controlled occupancy pattern. Or what I prefer to call a fair housing pattern, 55 percent white and 45 percent negro, to our board of directors. I would have urged one of 75 percent white. We've made so many negro sales, it was not practical to attempt to turn back that far. We found that once we asked the negro families to hold up the satisfaction of their housing demands 'til we can get enough white families to make an integrated community, that the negro families were willing to do so, provided we simply took some reasonable time to sit down with them explain what we were doing and establish rapport. Some families waited 6 months, some a year, some longer to get their homes. All those that waited got homes. Little by little, we got whites but it was tough. So tough, that at 1 point, 2 days before Christmas in '54, very frankly and quietly, I gave up. I

said to myself there aren't enough whites in the city of semi brotherly love to make this development integrated. And by sheer accident, we learned how to do it. A man applied for a job to sell our houses who had never sold houses before. He claimed to be a Quaker, claimed to believe in integration housing, and he said he was desperate for a job, he'd lose his house he didn't get one. And so I said OK, you've got a job, for every house you sell to a white family you'll get $100. For every house you sell to a Negro family you'll get $10. But I said you'll have to sell two houses to white families before I'll accept a single negro deposit. And this man said have no fear, Mr. Milgrim, I shall sell no houses to negros. This is where we had 50 negro families and 10 whites. The 10 already become 7, as I recollect by that time. And he went out and on weekdays, Visited during the day. The women he had met at our model house on Sundays. And on the pretext of making a date to see the husband in the evening, he would exhibit his Pandora's Box of color samples, ceramic tile,

asphalt tile, paint, and when the husband came home that evening that house had long ago been sold. And this way he sold 5 houses to white families in 5 weeks, a record that far surpassing that of our regular sales agent. At the end to the 5 week period, our star salesman came to us to said, 'Mr. Milgrim, I'm very delighted to sell your development out on an integrated basis.' he said, 'but why don't we also set up a 500 house all negro development and get rich quick?' He discovered there was a market among negroes. I patiently explained that I considered equally immoral to build all white housing, or all negro housing and I'd have none of either. And uh, our salesman couldn't understand it and start approaching my associates and did not succeed in selling them And finally, in psychopathic fashion, began a whirlwind campaign to take over the company by anti-Semitic stories on one hand anti negro stories elsewhere, anti-Catholic stories in other circles. And in three more weeks we had to fire him. I must confess it was quite a blow. Here we found the only man

who seemed able to sell our houses to white families, but we couldn't live with him. I remember driving back home from the office with tears streaming down my face. At what seemed to be the end of a dream. And as I drove I suddenly realized. We had the formula. If this man who didn't believe in integration housing, really, wouldn't dream of living in the development, and knew nothing about real estate, if he could sell the houses, imagine if we had a salesman who did believe the integration housing, knew real estate, and would move into the development. We had our formula. I called the American Friends Service Committee and said, "There must be somebody in the USA that meets these qualifications," And they found him for us in Syracuse, New York. Stuart E. Wallace. He was a real estate man, just leaving the real estate field, largely because of disagreement with the practice of Jim Crow in Syracuse. He came to look, not really

thinking he would stay and decided to stay. His wife and the first baby born in Concord Park park, and since then been so many children born there I can't keep track of them. This was 1 key secret of our success there, that we had a salesman who believed enough in integration to live in his development. Then the customers would say, 'Would you live next door to a negro?' He'd smile at them and said, 'I do'. And he'd arrange for them to meet his negro neighbors, socially. Maybe they go to the theater go to dinner together. People would see they didn't have horns. They were their cultural, economic, social equals. And this helped mightily. Another thing that helped was that we learned that we had to promise to white families that the community would be majority white. They didn't remember percentages but they did remember that. They were concerned. Until we were able to promise that we weren't able to get the white families. Now the thing we did there was to show that we had a concern for the future of the community by arranging for a three year voluntary resale agreement which some of the

families did not sign we didn't force them. But most of the families were delighted to sign. This gave us the right for three years to handle resales if we so desired and we did handle a few resales for that period. So while we were building the houses we did control the future of the community. In 3 years we sold Concord Park out, 55 percent, white 45 percent negro. By the time we had finished our first section in '55, it was obvious we were succeeding in Concord Park. We started our second development Greenbelt Knoll, a higher priced development of 19 houses with an average price tag about $25,000. This was set on a 9 acre site surrounded by park on three sides and we put a private park on the fourth side, a 2 acre park in which the community recently built a swimming pool and wading pool. This is a very beautiful spot with trees on, that are 80 feet tall and uh, It's an exciting place to live. Inside Philadelphia as I said, ride on a

bus line to the "L", in the great all white northeast. The success of these two communities led to our being invited into Princeton, New Jersey where a group of families had formed Princeton Housing Associates, And want to speed up the process of integration that had been started by their group which is trying to find individual Negroes to move into individual houses that were available. And uh, we built 2 developments totaling 40 houses there, about a $1,000,000 worth of construction, Sold 25% of the houses to negroes. not, not an exact pattern basis. One of the developments had a smaller proportion, other higher, And 75 percent to whites. We made 7% as a capital gain on the Princeton Developments, 6% on Concord/Greenbelt taken as a unit, and the success of these 2 led to demand around the country by friends that we set up a national firm to build integrated housing in various states and to help builders and communities with

advice and guidance in this field. And uh, in 1957, [pause] uh, I, uh, started work towards forming Modern Community Developers. It was by sheer accident again that I met the first man uh, to put up a substantial check. I have a habit of picking up every hitchhiker I meet. It's a simple routine for me. I believe in the Golden Rule and I did a lot of hitchhiking myself and was happy to be picked up in fact once waited three hours in the snow and know what it's like to wait and so I pick up everybody I pass and nothing's ever happened to me. Once a picked up two negro lads and one of them had a sister who was sector of life membership committee of NAACP and her boss was Kivie Kaplan. And one day she came to me and said, 'Morris, uh, Kivie is going to Israel, and he's been talking that he's got a $1,000,000 he doesn't know what to do with.' Kivie's wife is in the audience, so she'll forgive me for telling this story. And uh, I took this

statement with a grain of salt, but she said she'd arranged an appointment with Kivie. And sure enough I had a dinn-, luncheon date with Kivie in New York and he said well, he'd like to help but he knew nothing about the building business. I have to come up see a son-in-law, Mort Grossman, also in this audience, who is with L. Grossman Sons and knows the building game. And if Mort said OK he'd invest. So I went up to see Mort Grossman and remember we talked and talked. Mort wasn't quite sure what to do. Finally, I can see him where he says come on home for dinner. So I came home and later that evening I saw Kivie, and Kivie had had a hard day. His key man at this plant quit on him, and half the plant said they quit if the key man didn't come back, and the other half said they would if he did come back. [light chuckles] And by about 8 o'clock Kivie was worn to a frazzle and I came in, he had settled it. Everybody was peaceful, everybody was staying, and Kivie was all worn out. But Kivie said to Mort, in response to my request for a $1,000,000

investment, 'Shall I invest $25,000?,' and Mort said, 'Yes.' So, Kivie wrote a check, and I waved the check around, got a few more checks for $25000 a piece, and that's how we started Modern Community Developers. And in January 1958, we incorporated it and in April had our founding dinner in New York with Adlai Stevenson and Jackie Robinson and Tom Finletter. Kivie and Jackie were honored to receive the Averell Harriman Award for distinguished service in this field, and the some, of the guests were Marietta Tree and Bob Weaver and some other wonderful people. And little by little we got started. We raised about $700,000 from 1,200 people, when we had our first major snag in an all white suburb of Chicago, Deerfield. We'd been invited to Deerfield by, Or rather been invited to the Chicago area by a group led by Quakers,

Unitarians, and, and Professor Maynard 'Kreg' (Krueger) of the University of Chicago. And some Deerfield people were included, although we frankly hadn't realized at the time where each of these people lived. And after 2 years searching for sites. The site search had begun actually in '57. We finally in '59, found 2 pieces of ground in Deerfield; one of the many all white bedroom communities that surround Philadelphia. We hesitated, surround Chicago, I'm sorry. They surround Philadelphia too, and they surround Boston a lot of other places we know. At any rate, we were warned by 1 of the residents of Deerfield, Ethel Untermyer, the poet, that Deerfield was a pretty reactionary place and that we'd-, were making a mistake. But our choice was not easy, there was no other pieces of ground that we liked. The other communities weren't much better, And we decide our group would fall apart if we did get going. We decided to go ahead in Deerfield. When word got out,

some months later in November 1959, that we were planning to sell houses not only to whites, but to Negroes as well, the town reacted as though a major disaster had struck. Meetings were held 4 to the evening. Our job was closed down on charges that all sorts of things were wrong. Uh, and uh, we marched into federal court with our attorney, Adlai Stevenson's office, uh, protesting the harassment, asking for an injunction to stop the harassment, asking for an injunction to stop the state courts from taking our ground away for public parks which they were threatening to do, and asking for heavy damages. The federal judge refused to grant the last two but did grant an injunction against the harassment and they stopped bothering us. We finished the two models which had been on the roof, and meanwhile lengthy preliminary hearings went on concerning the injunction. The judge then refused to grant an injunction, saying we were the guilty parties. MCD and Morris Milgrim and his crowd, because we wouldn't sell all our houses to whites, or our house to

negroes. While Deerfield was a wonderful place. There was a rumor that once negro had lived in Deerfield. [quiet laughter] and uh, he didn't tell how they got rid of the negro but, that's another story. Uh, and so the judge threw the book at us. We appealed and won, But is was...not great. No great help. Judge Perry, ordered by the U.S. circuit court to give us a new trial, backed down, claiming his mind was made up. Threw it into another, lap of another federal judge who said he was too busy to hear us for another year or so. Meanwhile the state courts took a ground away. We appealed to the only Supreme Court and won, went back for a new trial. We lost again on the new trial. Joe Rile[?], the noted civil rights attorney, took it on appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court and to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it. Bobby Kennedy declined to help us although every top Negro leader in the country Phil Randolph, Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, Jim Fama, Jimmy Baldwin, the rest all begged him to do so. He refused to file a brief amicus although Burke Marshall

had written such a brief. And uh, the net result was the court declined to hear us, and the case was over. We took a terrific beating in Deerfield, and through the fallout of Deerfield elsewhere. As a result we've trans-, moved the battlefield from Deerfield to other areas where we're, we've redoubled our efforts including Washington D.C., New York, Wilmington, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut et cetera. And uh, we are not looking backward at Deerfield although we don't minimize the importance of this town. Remember the state legislature of Illinois commenting on Deerfield said, 'The road from David Field to Dachau is frighteningly short.' The.

Deerfield was a plus in many respects one of the exciting things it brought to us with some new friends Mrs. Roosevelt lampooned repeatedly in cartoons by the White Citizens Council newspaper, which attacked us in Deerfield. They were asked for help by the Deerfield, uh, vigilantes. Mrs. Roosevelt joined our board of directors. She had been our national advisory committee and worked hard for 2 years both as a member of our board and later as founding co-chairman with Bishop Pike of the American Freedom of Residence Fund. She flew with me to Deerfield in an effort to settle a case without success. And uh, this was one of the most important periods of the growth of MCD. Many people came to back it because, Deerfield tore the silken curtain away from the unwritten law that all new housing was for whites only. And many in Chicago had thought of moving to the suburbs to escape negroes realized suburbs were going some day to be opened up.

There are no regrets on my part about Deerfield. The local support we got in Deerfield has strengthened my faith in the progress of integration. Nearly 200 people in this all white suburb join Deerfield citizens for human rights backing our right to build for all. It raised funds, took full page ads in our defense, and courageously faced economic repis-, reprisals. 2 were fired from good jobs because they led efforts for equality in Deerfield. A book about it, 'But not next door' by Harry and David Rosen, uh, was widely circulated first in hardcover, then in paper bound by Avon. And then a Deerfield coloring book, by poet, Ethel Untermyer, illustrated by her daughter, was also sold widely Deerfield and elsewhere. Uh, One of the results of Deerfield was that in order to permit people to invest in integrated housing without investing in this expensive lawsuit, we set up planned communities,

uh, a subsidiary, and we raised almost 300,000 subscriptions from 500 people. Planned communities is concentrating in the New York to Washington area and is working in various sections. We've already bought through a limited partnership 1 up all white apartment house we've integrated it, moved five non-whites in out of 70 some odd apartments. Nobody's gotten excited. Nobody's moving out. The building is 100 percent occupied. And it's paying the cash flow we expected for its second year of occupancy we predicted an 8 percent year cash flow and already in the first quarter it is paying that. Uh, we've already put up a great deal of money more than half a million is in the bank waiting for settlement shortly on our second apartment house, 1 twice the size in another all-white section of a major city. We expect to expand our work in this field and uh, hope to move it along

rather rapidly. We're building in Riverdale New York shortly where 33 citizens including some of the most distinguished in the city of New York, uh, transfer title to planned communities of the beautiful tract overlooking the Hudson. And there we're going to build 19 exciting contemporary houses. When I entered the integrated housing field in 1954 I saw a lack of techniques for finding buyers. In '54, as the only Philadelphia area builder with housing open to all, I was deluged with negro buyers. Today with fair housing laws in 11 states, the Virgin Islands and 10 cities and with a presidential executive order banning discrimination and government aid housing, the problems are different. While most builders still maintain an unwritten but widely understood zero quota on housing available to non-whites. Even in areas with fair housing laws, there are numerous housing opportunities available to the nonwhite who will apply. Thus quotas are no longer needed to secure integrated housing and Modern Community

Developers and its subsidiaries do not use quotas either public or private. Rather we use our knowledge of the housing market to try to find both white and nonwhite buyers. Keeping in mind always the goal of securing a truly integrated community. To do to do this is getting easier as a climate of opinion moves steadily from year to year. To greater acceptance of the idea that all men are created equal and serve a fair chance at life, liberty, and happiness which means equal housing opportunity. In 1947, when I entered housing to build for all, housing discrimination was not discussed, just accepted. Today with the president's executive order, the unwritten law that all new housing is for whites only is technically repealed, in federally aided housing. Its' practical result depends more on consumers of housing, you here in the audience, than it does in builders or government.

Life is too short to do anything else but build a kind of world one believes in. My companies will not build all white housing nor all negro housing. Both are equally conducive to racial distrust bred by lack of contact. Housing for people developed with good design and careful site planning, including both white and negro families living together in fine communities will lead to a world where in the words of my friend the poet, Pauli Murray, 'One can be friend and brother to every other man.' Now, I was asked by Bill Goldsmith, to give an appraisal of my work and this is an embarrassing thing to ask anybody to do and so I shall not give my own appraisal. But rather answer the question by telling how a government official the system to the Ministry of Housing and Home Finance Agency, under Eisenhower, answer that question when asked it at a Freedom of Residence fund party New Rochelle about a year and a half ago. And he said, 'Our work in the Philadelphia area in Princeton had given others courage to try.' And He mention builders like

Fred Kramer, Prairie Shores in Chicago, 1,700 units, 80% rented to whites 20% to negros. Eichler in California and others. And uh, there are more other cases than are easily discussed. And I run into people from time to time who tell me of how what we did influence them. Governor Orville Freeman once told me that, a builder friend of his in Minnesota claimed the fair housing legislation would bankrupt him. Yet, later a state legislator voted for such legislation, pushed it because the example of what we had done, in Pennsylvania, made him believe this was possible. Our company has served as a consultant to builders and to communities sometimes communities as far away as Lincoln, Nebraska and Grand Rapids, Michigan. I must say sometimes we get into a funny situation. I remember in Lincoln, Nebraska, a group asked us to use our name and they

set up. We said OK you can use our initials. And so they set up MCD of Lincoln. And you know the story, some of you may have heard, Karl Marx's said he's not a Marxist. Well I'm supposed to be the father of quotas and housing. I am not for quotas. I'm trying to explain this and here my poor friends in Lincoln having had the advantage of one consultancy set up this project MCD of Lincoln, and they proudly show me their leaflet a year later. Oh they've set a very, very firm published quota, you see, 25% Negro 75% white, as I recall it and I try to make clear to him this to them this was an error. I use the quota as a technique to meet a new situation. It is not, in my opinion, needed today and it is a mistake to use quotas public, private, secret, or open. Our group has shown that money can be made in integrated housing ventures. We've also shown that it can be lost on

occasion, but builders lose money in all white housing too, so don't let that frighten you. When we expanded on a national basis we made some business errors, expanded a bit too fast. We're paying for these mistakes. Builders always pay for mistakes. Our apartment house work is going well. For the future we see a tremendous need for imaginative action. We think that the work that we're doing is a drop in the bucket. The work of expanding integrated housing opportunities or open occupancy housing opportunities is going on at a snail's pace. Partly because investment in this field is essentially token. And it's token investment because the big investors, insurance companies, banks, mortgage companies, and others, do not have adequate pressure on them to take an affirmative step for integration housing.

They fail to see that by doing nothing, they're taking an affirmative step for segregation in housing. And uh, the result is that those of us who are concerned about it are going to have to do something concrete. Our board of directors, at its last meeting, voted to initiate a program of tithing in investment. To get investors individual investors to put 10% of their available investment capital into integrated housing. David Melnicoff, the present Fels and Co. with whom I discussed this in Philadelphia, suggested we set up a real estate investment trust directed by competent business people. Which would handle such investments in the field of integrated housing. They would have the tax advantages of private ownership of buildings as well as the safety that might come from, that comes from corporate structure. And uh, this I've been discussing with key businessmen and

there's warm support for the idea and we're going to move it along. But whether it works or not will depend on individuals. Institutions move much more slowly. We're still working on the institutions. We haven't given up and every now and then a union puts $50,000 into this field or a foundation a $100,000. But it's very slow work from institutions but individuals can make decisions fast. And many of them do. We've gotten one quarter of a million dollar fund in '52 to buy a partner house and integrate them. In fif-, '62. Last year, I mean this year, I've got another fund, 350,000. I find it gets easier as you go along. The need of the time and the need of our company and the need of this movement is for the dedicated men who want to be developers, builders, salesman of communities open to all. The kind of people who can say it was the poet, Ralph Chaplin, 'Go grovel for the shoddy goods And plod and plot and plan, And if you win the

paltry prize--go prize it if you can, But I would hurl it in your face, To hold myself a man!' [loud applause] [audience member asks a question in low audio volume]: I just curious, Sir, as to whether your first step of development is as integrated now as it was then....[inaudible] [Milgrim]: No, not our first development which was the result of more mistakes than it could shake a stick at. Had such a high percentage of Negroes to start, such a high percentage that it made it very easy uh, for the movement. It is not 55% white now, it's, I would say, more than 55% Negro. I don't know the exact figures. One of the reasons and uh, those of you who know the real estate profession can realize how easily it happens is that their real

estate men who don't want to take negroes to buy their all white tracts are delighted to drag their negro customers whenever they see a house for resale in our tract. This is this would not have occurred, in my opinion, had we known at the beginning what we know now. Had we known that, we would have handled the thing differently, would ended up 75% white, would have been more likely to have remained closer to that figure. The other problem of course is that there was no fair housing legislation at that time and all the other developments were closed. Since that time with fair housing legislation and court action our friend, Bill Levitt, has been forced to open up in a suburb of Philadelphia. Levittown, New Jersey. Just a half a mile, just a half hour of downtown Philly. Result is that he has sold to negros without going bankrupt and is selling 900 homes a year of whom [audience chuckles], believe it or not, no more than 10 or 12, 13 are negro families. But there are about 50 or 60 Negro families now in Levittown, Pennsylvania and some have bought another tracts, and the situation is not the same. I think if

fair housing legislation had been in force at the time we built Concord, we would not have had those problems. [Audience member asks question in low audio volume]: Uh, in the book about Deerfield, um, there is a very small sentence referring to the fact that a nearby town, the name of which I can't remember, had just about the time when the park was voted in, had its first negro, uh, homeowner move-in. And this was done with the complete cooperation of town officials, investors, uh, people sympathetic to the cause of civil rights and so on. [Inaudible] But I am wondering what kind of, um, example this might set for you in going in a community. Is this the kind of ground work that can be done? Is it necessary?] [Milgrim] Well, the community was part forrest.

I regret to say the negroes moved out already, although there was not trouble when they moved in. And uh, it isn't easy to find negro pioneers in the Chicago area. But, uh, it does help, and we have learned a lot from the Deerfield experience. We learned that we have to work more closely with the power structure. And uh, we are working more closely the power structure in other areas and with the power structure not just in the Greater Chicago metropolitan area, but in this specific little community where you are building and so we have learned something of that however, it is not easy to uh, to know all the answers but we are not going to make all the mistakes of Deerfield again. Uh, we, we, uh had a lot of friends in the suburbs of Chicago but not enough in Deerfield.

Yes. [Audience asks the question in low audio volume -- inaudible....we've been studying the middle and upper middle income families and some of Mexican[?] descent of the people expect to stay in Roxbury or do not plan to move. Or do they have the financial resources to move. My question is, what is being done nationally to educate the negro communities on their responsibility for integration in housing? I shouldn't be asking this question as the former [?] Lead Secretary because I know the answer.] [Milgrim]: Well, Mr. Watts maybe you can tell us. Uh, but seriously, uh, there is not enough being done to educate the negro commutity but something is being done. For example when Reverend Leon Sullivan, the leader of the selective patronage movement in Chic-, in Philadelphia, who is a neighbor of mine, deliberately buys a house in an integrated area or in an area where he will be part of integrated community. He sets an example for his followers in the Negro

community. The members of his church and he happens to be planning to move because they want to be nearer to his church. But Reverend Sullivan is not going to move except to an all white area. He's not going to go to another ghetto. As you know how you teach. You don't teach by talk. You teach by example and Leon Sullivan is teaching by example. Just as Congressman Nix, by living in Greenbelt Knolls, teaching by example that he believes in integration. Now whether enough negroes will follow him depends upon what he does to boot. Now Sullivan is working with negro families to get them to move out of the ghetto. The commission human relations of Philadelphia and other cities, but especially Philadelphia, under George Schermer, issued very thoughtful material explaining to the negro com- the community the importance of trying to find houses outside the ghetto. I personally, and of course I gave it to New School for Social Research, remember seeing the shocked faces of some of my negro audience at my very strong statement, that part of the responsibility for Jim Crow in America

lies with the Negro community. Just as part of the responsibility for Jewish ghettos lies with Jews. It doesn't all lie with the majority group. Some of the ghettoisation is voluntary, and to the extent it's voluntary, it's the responsibility of those who accept it. I, uh, personally think, that the negro parent who voluntarily lives in a slum, voluntarily subjects his children to terrible rundown schools, to miserable, filthy surroundings, to bad traffic conditions and so on, because he's afraid to be a pioneer, lest somebody isolate his child and not talk to him in Levittown, because he's heard that all whites are s.o.b's This was the attitude of, and is the attitude of many a negro father that should know better. But has accepted the prejudices

of his group, the stereotypes, in just the way he does not want the whites to accept the stereotypes about negroes. There's a false assumption in the negro community that 95% of all whites hate all negroes. This is not true. There's actually no evidence to indicate that. Nor is there any reason to believe that anything more than a tiny percentage of whites are concerned that much about the color of the skin of the neighbor that they would do anything to isolate a negro moving in to an all white area. The only reason you read about stones being thrown once in a while a negro who moves into an all white area is that it happens rarely if it happened every day it wouldn't be news. Most of the move-ins in the Greater Philadelphia area, and all over the country, occur without news, without violence, without trouble, and they're not news at all. Just as it's no news my friends if you take a bath and don't slip. [light laughter] It's news if you slip and break a leg or are killed, then it makes the papers. [audience member asks a question in low audio volume]: I was wondering, integration is a two-way street, I was wondering if any steps are being taken to build a attractive housing in negro ghettos,

if you will, and urge whites to move into those?] [Milgrim]: There is a certain amount of this being done. in a sense. Prairie shores was built in the heart of Chicago a negro ghetto. Attractive housing but it was in such large quantity. That was virtually a new town and whites did move-in. Uh, similarly, in some areas, Fair Housing committees are trying to urge whites to move into areas close to the edges of the ghetto. I personally and others have made efforts to try to get whites to move into all negro areas it's a very tough job to get a person who doesn't, uh, absolutely have to do it to be a pioneer. One of the reasons it's so difficult is that negroes pay more for housing than for whites. A friend of mine, Julius John, professor of social work the University of Pennsylvania, once attempted to move into a negro area to be a pioneer. He discovered he'd have to pay a thousand dollars more for the

approximate same house they could buy cheaper outside the ghetto but relatively close. He decided he'd live outside the ghetto relatively close he didn't have a thousand dollars to spare. And this is part of the problem. Uh, I was talking to a real estate man in Philadelphia who said on similar buildings rented to negroes in West Philadelphia the profit of 17% if it's rented to all negro. If it's rented on to whites, the profit tends to be a lot closer to 7 or 8%, I'm sorry, cash flow which is not quite the same thing, but that negroes pay more for their housing has been fairly well-known and fairly well substantiated in many areas. [Audience member asks the question in low audio volume]: I'd like to call your attention Mr. Milgrim, to the problems that we have here in the Boston area, which I'm sure you must be familiar with. [Milgrim]: The speaker is Alfred Halper. Go ahead Al. [Al continues]: 60% of the negros in the commonwealth of Massachusetts live in the ghetto in Boston. 90% of the negros

in Boston live in this ghettos. Of these, 3 out of 8 families can afford to pay up to $75 a month for living quarters. Out of 2 of 8 families can [or can't?] afford to pay $75. 3 out of 8 can afford to pay up to $70. And the balance cannot afford even that amount. In white suburbia, so called, with the zoning laws that we have, 1 acre, 2 acre lots, how can we possibly build for these families? [Milgrim]: Well the answer is you can't. And the only way you can build for these families is to get zoning changed, is to fight for new procedures, uh, to use non-profit organizations, to use 211/d3 limited dividend corporations, and so on.

And to use all the ingenuity all the imagination available to us to develop new techniques of meeting the problem but it isn't easy and a great deal of it has to be done within the city limits where uh, the people now live. Uh, there are no easy solutions Al, as you and I know. I'd like to just add something that I perhaps might have said before; Eisenhower's commission on national goals it said that the first goal should be the elimination of discrimination from all phases of American life. And. I think one of the simple ways to do it is for us to start all of us by eliminating it from our own lives. And it's not only by negatives but by positive action to seek out integrated living opportunities when one moves. Uh, one of the exciting things, not exciting, saddening things that happen to me about a year ago was to discover that the head of the Fair Housing Committee of a great metropolis which

shall be nameless, moved from this city to another area and when he went to get a house, this guy was a real straight shooter, a crusader for integrated housing. He uh, went to a real estate man recommended by his boss, his new boss, bought a house in an all white area. No White Citizens Council member would have done any different. And uh, later on when I said, 'Why didn't you drop me a note before you moved?' This guy was one of our stockholders a decent fellow familiar with the whole field. Never occurred to him in the Fair Housing Committee been looking for housing opportunities for negroes. Never occurred to him where he lived meant anything. He could have moved into an integrated area. With his dollars he was voting 100 percent solid for Jim Crow in housing. Integrated areas in that section were going begging because good people never thought

that where they moved meant anything. A similar situation occurred in Pittsburgh recently where a city planner moving in from Michigan was not told by his city planning colleagues there were any integrated housing opportunities. He was a believer in integration. And I met him. I'd been called to testify in a fair housing bill, then end up in a court action in Pittsburgh and the city had asked me to speak to speak for them and they sent two men to drive me around town to show me what was going on there. And one of them was this young planner. I said, 'What were your criteria for selecting a home?' He said, 'oh I wanted a safe neighborhood for my wife.' Said, "Yes," said, "What is a safe neighborhood?' He said, 'Oh, uh, an all white neighborhood.' I said, 'yes.' I said, 'if I showed you 2 safe neighborhoods that were integrated, would you rather live there?' He said, 'Why certainly.'

So I did. I said drive me here and drive me there and I showed him to safe integrated neighborhoods in Pittsburgh that none of his good colleagues in the city planning department had thought of showing him. And one of them he left his name with the salesperson as a prospect this was a great action housing development. Which a hundred houses had already been built one had already been sold to a negro. The shocking thing about this was as I told him. I said, 'you know when you moved, you didn't do anything different than maybe the head of the White Citizens Council of Mississippi would have done if he were moving to Pittsburgh. He said, 'No I didn't.' Your criteria were no different. And uh, this is something we've got to think about. We build the kind of world we believe in. If you believe in an integrated world if you want to world what men can live together as brothers you've got to do something concrete about it. The dangers of the present 'do nothing policy' of institutions and individuals who claim to be dedicated to democracy, is that in-

irreparable damage is being done to the American image abroad. Grave injustice is being done to the deprived groups. But a psychological damage of great proportions is being done, both to those discriminated against and to those doing that discrimination. Howard K. Smith said, 'We must insist on boldness, nonconformity, flexibility, daring, imagination, ingenuity and imagination. In facing our growing problems.' I'm not sure we're doing enough of this. [Audience member asks the question in low audio volume]: How do you feel about listing services for people who are interested in or available [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [Milgrim]: Well, the problem is to

find brokers who will. To establish new brokerages to circumvent the brokers to bypass them with fair housing committees. Uh, Groups like that are being set up all over the country and are working. But use negro brokers. There're many negro brokers happy to make a commission. But, uh, and more brokers are trying to meet this in a conscientious fashion. Maybe Al Halper, would know a broker uh, if you're looking for one and there are people around. But there are ways of making sales without brokers if a person is determined enough. In some cities individuals, in Seattle, the head of the State Commission on Human Relations set up a new firm, Harmony homes, to build and sell houses on integrated basis, he's doing very well. Sure, go ahead [Audience member asks a question in low audio volume]: What do you do about the fact that building trades are notoriously not integrated? [Milgrim]: Well it's not as bad, believe it or not, in some areas as is thought. I know in-, you read about Philadelphia and the lack of integration the building trades. Well there are more carpenters than you can

shake a stick at in the Carpenters Union. Some unions are not integrated some are. This is a very serious problem and the only thing that people can do to meet it, if they're consumers, is to insist that houses they buy are built eh, by integrated crews. It is possible to get them by raising the issues. I know on our jobs we insist on it. I remember the first job I came to in Philadelphia I threatened to quit if we didn't hire negro carpenters as well as whites. We got 40% of the hundred carpenters working on that job were negro. We got them into the Union. Men who were nonunion by simply advancing the initiation fee and. Where we, will go, we went into the Urban League they got us the carpenters if the Union didn't have them. [Audience member asks a question in low audio volume -- inaudible] [Milgrim]: No, a private person to do it. If you're hiring a little contractor you can say to him, 'Look John, you want this job? I want an integrated crew to build it, and I'll get a builder who's going to, to

pay to get such crews and men are available. I know I've raised it in jobs we're doing and we we find that we do have effect sometimes even just the gentlest suggestion to a subcontractor. He wants to be in your good graces and he'll move. Yes. [Audience member asks a question in low audio volume -- inaudible]: I consider myself still after 40 years, an outsider to the Boston community but, observing from my listening post anyway....seems to me the communication between white liberals, people including a fair number of people in the fair housing committees and others, the communication between them and negro communities has broken down rather badly. I think, for example, you can notice this, probably did as an outsider coming and listening to some of the people in Boston who you would suspect have better lines and relations in communications into the com-, uh, uh, talking about the negro communities as if it was something outside. Now, this has been damaging in a whole variety

of different ways. Uh, for example, uh, uh, I find there has been a kind of insensitivity on part of the negro community in a kind of way they've handled, in the manner and style in which they've handled, several of the critical problems in this city. They've broken off, to a great extent, the Of the. Career. For. A. And, uh, uh, the reaction or feeling is not sensibly felt out. Another thing is, some of the white uh, uh, individuals who work, uh, in a dedicated What. It was. of the [big?] negro community and no longer participate as a bridge. And then I find that outside, where you have this vast network of fair housing groups, in my community and others, where there are literally a number of families right on my block who are practically demanding the entry of negros into their community, because we all feel deprived that our kids have to be grown up in an all white community.

When we've had houses available, we haven't been able to find the buyers. Uh, now this is a really kind of tragic situation, I think here, I may be wrong. I think we will hear it on our position, and correct me on this if you know the Boston situation better. Something better be done about that. I wondering whether your experience in some other cities uh, would lead some suggestions or other. [Milgrim]: Well, it is a tragic situation. To some extent, we ourselves are responsible often more than we know. Uh, partly it's because The gap is lengthened by our voluntary associations; churches Synoguages, fraternal orders that are essentially segregated. In the sense they're either Jewish, or white Protestant, or white Catholic. Very few of these institutions are integrated.

The result often is that a social life develops so that the average white liberal without realizing it, has more of an all white social life than is healthy. And the only solution I can suggest is a conscious development of an integrated social life to break down the barriers. Because unless you consciously do it, since these unconscious lines have been drawn by your church, your synagogue, your school, your fraternity, all these things that may have been either all negro or all white. Unless you consciously break out, what happens is, the negro community is running all negro gatherings the white community is running all white gatherings and these two groups of common minded liberal groups meet. Lest they should part of them is a distance from the ghetto. The ghetto was a long way off from all white suburbia and it's in ours right sometimes to invite someone to your home. An all white suburban and solidly if you want someone to come off the conquered.

There are problems there and you won't solve them except with a very conscious thoughtful effort to build friendships carefully the same way you might you build a house by laying brick upon brick. It's not done by accident and I don't think the response was with the white community alone I think Jim Crow in the Negro community has been broken in the same way and I think it's just as wrong for Negroes to have. A pyramid club as they have in Philadelphia for Negro business man. As it is for white businessmen to have an all white club full for Jewish business website up of all Jewish social clubs. Right. Now way. Way. Out. Here. I. Will write. This all over again. And so. Long. As you know me no one.

Knows. [Milgrim]: Well, right, there are two problems, in the case of the white family that wouldn't pay a premium to live a negro area, he's willing to live there but he couldn't afford the financial [high price?]. He did move into an integrated area you see, and he's now a leader in our integrated community at Greenbelt Knoll. Now the case of the negro, the interesting thing about the negro, and the one family I had in mind, moved into an integrated community that was already roughly 50/50 you see, and help to force it into an all negro status. His alternative was to be a pioneer in an all white community nearby and I offered him that alternative. And this man, by the way, a member of the board of Philadelphia NAACP was frightened. He was a great hero in the war, and was decorated, and he's and he fought all his way up to Eisenhower when he couldn't get into the Air Corps Reserves but he was afraid to have his kids face the possibility of being snubbed and getting to difficulties in the nearby all white community. I think he made a great mistake. I think he's

helped to perpetuate lower wages for, not only his family and his his kids and his children's children, but for himself in his own time, that's how closely tied Jim Crow is to the problems of the day and uh, He's made a grave mistake built upon his own stereotype of whites.