Law Commons^™

Two Tailors: The Pursuit Of Racial Justice In 1970s Chicago, Susan L. Waysdorf

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Every legal case has a story behind it, and some, like this one, also have a legacy. This is a story about two immigrant tailors in Chicago-the white tailor's attempt to sell his tailor shop to the black tailor, and the racial discrimination they confronted together. One tailor, Ivan Thompson, was a black citizen of Great Britain living in Chicago, and the other, Martin Waysdorf, was a white Jew from Poland. He became a. U.S. citizen in 1949, after emigrating from his Polish shtetl to Chicago and escaping the Nazi Holocaust.' The Jewish tailor was my father. This article will …