Murray Gitlin was a white Jewish-American political activist. During World War II he worked as an official with the non-Communist philanthropic organization United Jewish Appeal. I...vizualizați mai multeMurray Gitlin was a white Jewish-American political activist. During World War II he worked as an official with the non-Communist philanthropic organization United Jewish Appeal. It was during this time that he met and married Thyra J. Edwards, a Texan-born black social worker, journalist, labor organizer, and advocate for women’s and civil rights. The couple moved to New York City after the war.
In 1947, the United Jewish Appeal appointed Gitlin as deputy director of a branch of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to work with Jewish refugees in post-war Italy. There he spent five years with his wife Thyra, and wrote his book The Embarkation, which was published in 1950.
Gitlin and Edwards returned to the United States in 1952, dividing their time between West Hartford, Connecticut, where Gitlin’s family lived, Edwards’ hometown of Houston, Texas, and New York City, where Edwards died of cancer in 1953, aged just 56.
Murray Gitlin was also the author of All the Voices, published in 1960, which tells the moving story and thought-provoking story of an extraordinary white man married to a unique black woman.vizualizați mai puține