14) LEE LORCH, 1915-2014

 

            Lee Lorch, a mathematics professor who was renowned for his involvement in a wide range of anti-racism and other progressive movements for decades, died of natural causes on February 28 in Toronto, at the age of 98.

 

            A widely-circulated New York Times obituary presents much of Lee Lorch's life story. Born on Sept. 20, 1915 at in Manhattan to Adolph Lorch and Florence Mayer Lorch, he was a graduate of Townsend Harris High School. He attended Cornell University and the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a doctorate in mathematics.

 

            During World War Two, he served in the Pacific with the U.S. Army Air Corps, and returned home to teach math at City College in New York. Like millions of veterans, he could not find a place to live, until he and his wife Grace and daughter Alice moved into the huge Stuyvesant Town development on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, along with 25,000 other people.

 

            There, the Lorches entered into a lifelong struggle against racism. African-Americans were not allowed to live in the development. He was among the group of 12 tenants calling themselves the Town and Village Tenants Committee to End Discrimination in Stuyvesant Town. By helping to organize tenants, and then inviting a black family to live in his own apartment, Lorch played a crucial role in eventually forcing the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, which owned the development, to abandon its whites‑only admissions policy.

 

            As often happened in the Cold War era, Lorch paid the price for his activism. The appointments committee at City College blocked his promotion, effectively forcing him to find a job at Pennsylvania State University, which was also then denied. In September 1950, he accepted a new academic post, becoming one of two white professors at Fisk University, the historically black institution in Nashville, Tennessee. At Fisk, Lorch taught three of the first blacks ever to earn doctorates in mathematics.

 

            But his beliefs, including his Communist Party membership, resulted in further harassment. By 1955 he was again fired, finding a new job at tiny Philander Smith College, an all‑black institution in Little Rock, Arkansas.

 

            There, the Lorches became involved in the school desegregation struggle, helping to enrol the "Little Rock Nine" at the previously all-white Central High School. The Lorches were attacked for their activities, as racists burned a cross on their lawn and placed dynamite in their garage.

 

            The college eventually declined to renew Lorch's appointment, forcing him into exile. In 1959, he was hired at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and then in 1968, by York University in Toronto, from which he retired in 1985.

 

            Lee Lorch maintained his mathematical studies and research, and his activism as a member of the Communist Party of Canada and other groups. He was a member of the Canada-Cuba Friendship Association (Toronto) Executive for many years, and then Honourary President. He was also a corresponding member of the Cuban Academy of Science, and a strong supporter of People's Voice. For his scientific contributions and his pioneering efforts to encourage Blacks and women to enter mathematics, Lorch was often honoured by his fellow mathematicians, receiving an honourary degree from the City University of New York in 1990.

 

            The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada has sent deepest condolences to Lee's daughter Alice and her husband Dennis, and to his granddaughters, Natasha and Jessica.

 

(The above article is from the March 16-31, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)