[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 175 (Monday, November 30, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12006-S12007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING MALCOM SHERMAN

 Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I wish to pay to tribute the 
life and legacy of Malcolm Sherman.
  Malcolm Sherman was part of that extraordinary generation that fought 
for America during World War II, and then fought for what America 
stands for during the rest of his life.
  He joined the Marines after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and 
served during the Guadalcanal campaign. When he returned home, he built 
a family with his beloved wife Mimi, and he built a career in real 
estate.
  He truly lived his life according to the Jewish principle of ``tikkun 
olam''--the repair of the world through the pursuit of social justice. 
He worked for peace and civil rights throughout his life. He also was a 
leader in the effort to ending segregation and discrimination in 
housing. Perhaps his greatest legacies are his children and 
grandchildren, who live by his principles of service.
  I ask that an obituary of Mr. Sherman written by Frederick Rasmussen 
of the Baltimore Sun be printed in the Record.
  The information follows.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, Nov. 21, 2009]

  Malcolm Sherman: Former Rouse Co. Executive Battled Blockbusting in 
             Baltimore Neighborhoods in the 1950s and 1960s

                      (By Frederick N. Rasmussen)

       Malcolm ``Mal'' Sherman, a former Rouse Co. executive and 
     real estate agent who battled blockbusting and worked 
     tirelessly for integrated neighborhoods during the 1950s and 
     1960s, died Thursday of pneumonia at the Broadmead retirement 
     community in Cockeysville. He was 87.
       Mr. Sherman was born in Philadelphia and spent his early 
     years there. After the death of his father in 1927, he was 
     sent abroad to a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, 
     where he lived until returning to New York City in 1932.
       After graduating from Horace Mann School in New York City, 
     Mr. Sherman attended the University of North Carolina at 
     Chapel Hill.
       He dropped out of college and enlisted in the Marine Corps 
     two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
       Mr. Sherman was wounded while serving as a master sergeant 
     during the Guadalcanal campaign and was honorably discharged 
     at war's end.
       He was a founder of the United Nations Veterans League, 
     which worked for world peace.
       After the war, Mr. Sherman and his wife, the former Miriam 
     ``Mimi'' Heller, whom he married in 1943, moved to San 
     Francisco, where he was a salesman for Paul Masson Wines.
       In 1949, Mr. Sherman moved to Baltimore to be closer to his 
     wife's family. He earned his real estate license and 
     established Mal Sherman Inc. Realtors. His staff consisted of 
     18 men and 18 women, at a time when there were few women in 
     the business.
       ``I always had an interest in houses and land,'' Mr. 
     Sherman said in a 1999 interview with the Maryland Realtor. 
     ``I thought I could help people make a decision. I wanted to 
     help families find a better quality of life. It was a way for 
     me to combine business and social work all in one.''
       In the early days, Mr. Sherman confronted anti-Semitism and 
     segregated neighborhoods.
       ``As a Jewish real estate broker, I was not allowed to show 
     property east of Falls Road,'' he recalled in the interview.
       In 1953, when Mr. Sherman tried to stabilize a neighborhood 
     that was undergoing blockbusting, he appealed to white 
     residents to stay.
       They rebuffed his plea and refused to do business with him 
     because of his integrationist views.
       Even after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education 
     decision in 1954 that declared ``separate but equal'' 
     unconstitutional, discrimination in real estate continued.
       In 1960, Mr. Sherman decided it was time to hire African-
     American real estate agents and brought Lee Martin, a Morgan 
     State graduate, into his company.
       While working for Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. in the early 
     1960s, Mr. Sherman began to push fair-housing issues and in a 
     news conference said he would sell to anyone ``regardless of 
     race, creed, or color.''
       When baseball great Frank Robinson came to Baltimore to 
     play for the Orioles in 1966, he instructed Mr. Sherman to 
     find a home for him and his family in a white neighborhood.
       ``He didn't want to be segregated,'' Mr. Sherman recalled 
     in an interview. After persuading the white neighbors to 
     accept Mr. Robinson, Mr. Sherman was still attacked by a 
     local builder for ``breaking the block.''
       President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the Equal 
     Opportunity for Housing in America Committee.
       Mrs. Sherman, who died in 2005, joined her husband in his 
     quest for open housing and civil rights.
       ``All that black people wanted was the right to buy or rent 
     anyplace, regardless of race, creed or color, and once given 
     that

[[Page S12007]]

     right, they didn't necessarily inundate and run to the 
     neighborhoods that they had been barred from,'' Mr. Sherman 
     told The Sun in 2001.
       He was later joined by other local brokers such as Russell 
     T. Baker and Bill Wilson in the push for fair-housing laws 
     that finally became a reality in 1968 when Congress passed 
     legislation, but his crusade took a toll on his firm.
       ``Because he felt so strongly about these issues, it 
     eventually put him out of business. It was a terrible thing 
     to have happened,'' said Sandy Marenberg, president of MEI 
     Real Estate in Baltimore.
       ``Mal held to his views all the way until the end of his 
     life. He was a real hero and mentor in the Baltimore real 
     estate community,'' Mr. Marenberg said.
       In 1967, Mr. Sherman was named residential land sales 
     director for the Rouse Co., and three years later was 
     promoted to director of sales and land marketing in Columbia.
       Mr. Sherman was named Rouse Co. vice president in 1971 with 
     responsibilities for all residential land sales and helped 
     steer Columbia toward racial diversity.
       When he went to work for the Rouse Co., Mr. Sherman found a 
     boon companion in Jim Rouse, the company founder, who shared 
     his views.
       ``We were combating a trend, and Jim was frightened. He 
     didn't want it [Columbia] to come out like the city,'' Mr. 
     Sherman recalled in a 2000 interview in The Sun. ``He wanted 
     all of the people mixed all over the place; that was the 
     social goal.''
       ``He was a charismatic man always trying to help someone. 
     He discriminated against no one,'' said James Holechek, a 
     retired Baltimore public relations executive.
       ``It was a personal testimony when he was sought out and 
     hired by Jim Rouse. To me, Mal Sherman was always Mr. Real 
     Estate in Maryland,'' he said.
       A liberal Democrat and an anti-war activist, Mr. Sherman 
     found himself on the Nixon White House's enemies list after 
     founding Businessmen Against the Vietnam War.
       That's ``great news'' he told The Sun in 1973. ``It's the 
     best thing I have to tell my son about myself. I feel better 
     about this than any kind of honor that could come to me,'' he 
     said.
       After leaving the Rouse Co. in the early 1970s, Mr. Sherman 
     went to work for Phipps Land Co. and later Ackerman & Co., a 
     real estate firm based in Atlanta. He returned from Atlanta 
     in 1981 when he was appointed Baltimore-Washington area 
     regional vice president for the firm.
       Mr. Sherman continued working as a real estate consultant 
     after leaving Ackerman. He retired in 2001.
       ``He was arguably the wisest, most caring adviser and 
     thinker in the Baltimore real estate world,'' said Martin L. 
     Millspaugh Jr., who was the first chief executive of Charles 
     Center-Inner Harbor Management Inc.
       ``His life made a difference over many years, in ways that 
     will become even more apparent as time goes by,'' Mr. 
     Millspaugh said.
       He was a former president of the Real Estate Board of 
     Greater Baltimore and in 1999 was awarded the Maryland Real 
     Estate Board Life Achievement Award. Recently, he was honored 
     for his civil rights work by the National Association of 
     Realtors.
       A former resident of the Colonnade in Homewood, Mr. Sherman 
     was a member of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.
       Services will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at Sol Levinson and 
     Bros., 8900 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville.
       Surviving are two daughters, Wendy R. Sherman of Bethesda 
     and Andrea Sherman of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.; and two 
     grandchildren. His son, Douglas Sherman, died in 
     1981.

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