Harry Gaynor
Harry Gaynor...
Harry Gaynor, a Chicago businessman and socialist, died in Chicago in 2005 age 90. He is survived by his brother Nate and his son Barry.
Early life
Born in 1914 in Brooklyn, of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, Gaynor’s family moved to Chicago when he was a child. His father was a tailor and furrier and a member of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union.
Gaynor attended Finger High School in Roseland on Chicago’s South Side. When the Great Depression struck, he had to leave school to help support the family, While working, he met Communist Party USA member Mario Manzardo, who gave him pamphlets and the Daily Worker.
Joining the Communist Party
At the beginning of World War II, Gaynor found work at the Chicago Dodge plant making parts for the B-29 bomber. There he met another party activist[1], Sam Gold, with whom he had many discussions about the Communist Party’s views and its role in fighting Hitler fascism. He subsequently joined the and remained a member to the end of his life.
Business career
In 1947 Gaynor married Anne and shortly afterwards they took real estate courses at Wright College and began their own business in the then white South Lawndale community. The discrimination in housing became personal when they were denied renting an apartment because they were Jewish.
Activism
The couple became more active in fighting discrimination and racism. They also joined and were active with the NAACP, the Greater Lawndale Conservation Commission, the USA-USSR Friendship Council, Freedom of Residents, the Progressive Party, Chicago Peace Council, ACLU, Anti-Defamation League and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
In the late 1950s, the Gaynors owned and lived in a three-family unit in the predominantly white Garfield Park neighborhood. They rented one unit to a newly wed Black couple, both city workers. The community’s reaction was immediate.
The next day over 2,000 white bigots demonstrated outside. Gunfire shattered windows, and the building’s back porch was set afire. Police had to restore order, but the Gaynors and their tenants were under siege for nearly a year. But they persevered with support from many organizations and progressives, among them the Rev. Edwin Bueher of the Third Unitarian Church.