Background
Harry Fleischman was born on October 3, 1914, in New York City, New York, United States.
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Harry Fleischman attended the City College of New York for two years.
For a quarter-century until just before his death, Harry Fleischman was a Chairman of the Workers Defense League, a labor-rights organization in New York.
(Special 1959 combined "Holidays" and "Brotherhood" annual...)
Special 1959 combined "Holidays" and "Brotherhood" annual edition of the Minnesota newspaper the Duluth Jewish Herald: A Northwest Jewish Herald Publication, published by the American Zionist Publishing House.
https://www.amazon.com/Duluth-Jewish-Herald-Brotherhood-Festival/dp/B01GQ4B6LU/?tag=2022091-20
1959
Harry Fleischman was born on October 3, 1914, in New York City, New York, United States.
Harry Fleischman attended the City College of New York for two years.
After attending the City College for two years, Harry Fisherman became involved in the fledgling Socialist Party when he attempted to organize a union at the clothes-hangar factory where he worked. Fired from that job for his union activities, Harry next worked at a window-blind factory and put together an effective labor strike. By 1942, Fleischman had risen to the position of National Secretary for the Socialist Party U.S.A., and in 1944 and 1948 he served as Campaign Manager for his party's Presidential Candidate, Norman Thomas, about whom he would later write in Norman Thomas: A Biography, 1964. After resigning from his post at the Socialist Party, Fleischman worked as the Labor Editor for the Voice of America from 1951 until 1953. He then was named a Director of the National Labor Service of the American Jewish Committee, a post he held from 1953 to 1979. In 1963, he also became a Vice President of the Workers Defense League.
Harry Fleischman was also a writer. His book Norman Thomas: A Biography was published by W.W. Norton in 1964. Reviewing the book in The Saturday Review, Upton Sinclair wrote, "Whatever may be your ideas about social justice, you will understand better the country and the time in which you live if you read this story." One of Fleischman's other books is Let's Be Human published in 1960, a collection of his syndicated columns on human relations and civil rights.
(Special 1959 combined "Holidays" and "Brotherhood" annual...)
1959An ardent anti-Communist, Fischman wrote several articles during the McCarthy era that stressed the importance of maintaining civil liberties. Also, involved in the Socialist Party activities and the labor movement since the time he was a teenager, Harry was fired from his first job, in a factory that made wire clothes hangers, for attempting to organize a union. An avid opponent of communism, Fleischman found himself struggling against not only the extreme left but also labor union leaders who staunchly resisted allowing their organizations to become racially integrated. Toward this end, in his role with the Workers Defense League, Fleischman was the driving force in getting New York City unions integrated, but an apprenticeship training program he worked on for minorities was taken over by the United States Labor Department in partnership with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations rendering them largely ineffective. Seeing that the American labor movement was on the decline, Fleischman tried to work more within the system in later life, assisting with the Democratic Socialists of America party, and serving as executive director of the National Alliance for Safer Cities in the 1970s.
Fleischman spent much of his professional life trying to smooth the sometimes rocky terrain where issues of labor and race intersect.
Activism always was a characteristic of Fleischmann since his youth. After his fail in organizing a workers' union at his first job, he did not give up, and successfully organized a strike at a new place of work.