A New York Jew moves south: Edwin D. Hoffman

Edwin D. Hoffman in 1960
Sunday Gazette-Mail [Charleston,  West Virginia]. October 30, 1960

Edwin D. Hoffman was born in Manhatten on December 3, 1918 to Joseph and Sadie Hoffman. Joseph and Sadie's parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Sadie herself was born in America. At the time of Edwin's birth, the Hoffmans had achieved remarkable financial success. Starting as a clothing cutter, Joseph had worked in the garment industry since he was a teenager. By the 1920s, he was running his own clothing manufacturing business and had moved the family to suburban Long Island. 

Hoffman family residence in the late 1910s
617 West 170 St, Manhatten, New York
From GoogleMaps

Hoffman family residence in 1920
391 Eastwood Road, Hempstead, New York
From GoogleMaps

Edwin spent his childhood on Long Island. While he would later become deeply involved in the struggle to secure civil rights for African Americans, he interacted with few African Americans while growing up. In a later account of his life, he wrote that the only African American he so much as spoke to was the live-in maid employed by his Uncle Harry and Aunt Ethyle. Their maid, Hattie Harrel, was a 20-something year old women who had moved to New York City from Georgia.

Edwin's family life was severely disrupted by the Great Depression. His father lost his business. The family was forced to move out of their home on Long Island and ended up living in an apartment in Washington Heights in Manhattan. Edwin's father found work as a rent collector for a housing project (a job he described as "like trying to get blood out of a turnip"), and his mother took up sewing lace collars to supplement their income. This economic disruption led Edwin to question American capitalism, and by high school, he had become, in his words, a radical youth.

Edwin traces his engagement with political issues involving African Americans to the move out of Long Island. The move put Edwin in closer proximity to African Americans as Washington Heights borders Harlem, then a largely African American neighborhood. He shocked to see how African Americans in the city were largely confined to working menial jobs. He was especially upset when he was riding the trolley one day and saw a large group of African American women standing on the corner of Jerome Avenue (in the Bronx), trying to get work as a domestic day workers. He later described the scene as "a virtual slave market."

Hoffman family residence in 1940
250 Fort Washington Avenue, Manhattan, New York
GoogleMap

Edwin graduated from high school and began attending the City College of New York around 1936. That year he helped organize a campus chapter of the American Students Union or ASU. He remained active in the Union during his time as a student. He served as chapter president, vice president, and secretary from 1938 to 1939. 

The ASU was one of several left-wing organizations organized on campus during this time. In general, City College was a center of student activism. The student population drew heavily from immigrant and working-class families. The students brought to campus the political concerns that impacted their families.

Among the ASU activities Edwin helped organize was a sit-down in front of the college president's office. The sit-down was organized by the Frederick Douglass Society (an African American students' organization) as part of a campaign to compel the administration to make the campus more welcoming to students of color. They achieved success. City College hired its first African American faculty member, Max Yergan. In fall 1937, Yergan taught City College's first course in African American Studies "Negro History and Culture." Edwin was among the students who attended the class.

Because of his family's financial difficulties, Edwin had to work during college to make ends meet. He worked on Wall Street as a "runner" (responsible for carrying securities for a brokerage firm). 

Edwin graduated from City College in 1940. He then continued to work on Wall Street, although he was able to secure employment as a billing clerk. He also continued his education by enrolling in a graduate program at Columbia University's Teachers College. However, before he could complete a graduate degree, his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War Two.

Edwin enlisted in the U.S. army on April 1, 1942, about half a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was stationed on the western front and was in combat service as a Forward Observer in the Field Artillery. He served in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. After the war, he was part of the U.S. occupation and supervised prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and Austria until his discharge on April 6, 1946. By this time, he'd been made an officer and held the rank of first lieutenant. 

After the war, Edwin continued his continued his education at Columbia's Teachers College. He received an M.A. from the college in spring 1947. That year he also began teaching at Long Island University. He would remain at LIU for the next seven years.

While teaching at LIU, Edwin remained in graduate school, working on his Ph.D. He was supervised by Professor Erling Hunt. Although employed in the Teacher College, Professor Hunt was a historian and had received his Ph.D. from Columbia's History Department.

Edwin completed his Ph.D. in 1952. His dissertation, titled "Creators of a democratic heritage: nine dramatic episodes on the building of the American democratic tradition," told stories of Americans who had played a role in "forging a tradition of freedom that can guide and inspire us today." Reflecting Edwin's interest in civil rights, the dissertation included discussions about the experiences of African Americans. Edwin later wrote Professor Hunt encouraged his research on the topic.

Edwin remained engaged in politics while teaching and working on his dissertation. He joined the American Labor Party or ALP in 1945. The ALP was a New York based pro-labor, socialist democratic party. During the late 1930s and the early 1940s, the party's electoral efforts focused on offering support to the mainstream (i.e. Republican or Democratic) candidates that were most supportive of their policies. However, the party also nominated its own candidates when there wasn't a suitable Republicans or Democrats.

Edwin was among those the ALP nominated for political office. In 1948, he ran for Representative of the Fifteenth District in the state General Assembly. He performed poorly on Election Day. He only received 9,160 votes. By comparison, the winner of the election, Republican Samuel Roman, received 34,087 votes. His Democratic challenger, James M. Grundy, received 30,598. In reporting on the election, the New York Times reported that the election generally demonstrated the waning electoral power of the ALP. 

In 1954, after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its famous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Edwin became enthusiastic about the prospect of positive political change for African Americans. Wanting to play a greater role, he began making inquiries about teaching at an HBCU in the south. He soon received an invitation to interview for a position at Allen University in Columbia, SC.

Edwin was interviewed by Allen President, Samuel Higgins, and the chairman of the board of trustees, Bishop Frank Madison Reid. They met in Harlem's Teresa Hotel. President Higgins explained Allen University had a proud tradition of maintaining an all-black faculty. However, because of the Brown decision, he wanted to integrate the faculty. Many of Allen's graduates became public school teachers. At the time, those graduates taught at all-black segregated schools. However, in light of the Brown decision, Higgins expected that many would soon be teaching at integrated schools. He thought hiring some white faculty would help them transition to teaching in an integrated environment. 

Bishop Madison added that they only wanted to hire white professors who were supportive of civil rights for African Americans. Most whites in South Carolina were staunch segregationists, and the trustees want to make sure that any white faculty they hired would not give "any aid or comfort to the Dixiecrats." Edwin assured the bishop that he "stood for full equality." 

President Higgins and Bishop Madison were evidently impressed by their interview with Edwin. He and John G. Rideout became Allen's first white faculty that fall.