Erwin A. Salk multicultural collection

Biography/Profile

Erwin Arthur Salk (June 1918-July 2000) was a businessman, civil rights activist, peace advocate, philanthropist, and educator.

Salk graduated from the University of Chicago in 1939 then earned a Master's degree there in Political Science and Public Administration in1941. During World War II, Salk served in the office of the Secretary of War and graduated from the School for Military Governors for the Far East of the University of Virginia. He went on to serve with the Supreme Command Allied Powers in Tokyo and then worked for two years in Paris for the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Salk's career is primarily remembered for his work as a mortgage banker with Salk, Ward and Salk which his father, Harry Salk, founded in 1926. Salk joined the firm in 1950. It grew into the 43rd largest mortgage service in the United States by 1969. Professionally, Salk held positions with AMI Real Estate Corporation, Board of the Independence Bank of Chicago, and Mortgage Bankers Association of America. In the sixties, he was frequently a source for news reporters on local housing issues and the U.S. economy. Salk also served as chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Fund Raising Campaign of Greater Chicago, Board of Managers of the Robert R. McCormick Chicago Boys Club, and President of B'Nai B'rith, Louis H. Harrison Lodge. As a businessman he was frequently called upon for financial support. In addition to working with organizations he also donated to a long list of them. Among his many contributions was the donation to local schools of a 37 volume series of the work of W.E.B. Dubois.

From his position of respectability Salk also became an advocate for the poor. A self-described "hard-nosed capitalist" and "conservative," Salk nonetheless advocated for a number of "pragmatic" - not radical, he insisted - issues. In 1967, Salk co-founded with four other businessmen Business Executives Move for Vietnam Peace (BEM). The group sought an end to the U.S. war in Vietnam mainly on the grounds that military Keynesianism was bad for the American economy. Instead, Salk advocated free trade with China and for detente in US-USSR relations. Salk lectured widely on these issues and was periodically cited in the press. Salk's activism led to invitations to join a number of organizations and permitted Salk to network across a vast swath of communities of interest. Work with the Chicago Center for US/USSR Relations and Exchanges was one of Salk's major undertakings.

In Evanston and Chicago, Salk worked with local open housing committees to forbid restrictive covenants barring black ownership. With the Housing Committee of the Chicago Conference on Religion and Race he served as Chairman, and with the Evanston Community Relations Commission he chaired the Executive Committee. His concern for America's poor compelled Salk to author A Layman's Guide to Negro History and the exhibit pamphlet Dubois-Robeson: Two Giants of the Twentieth Century. This studied interest also led Salk to teach, "Missing Pages in U.S. History," a course at Columbia College where Salk was also a pivotal figure in founding the Center for Black Music Research and served on the college's board of directors. He also served as a member of the executive board of the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, as Vice President of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and on the board of directors for the DuSable Museum of African-American History.

He died in 2000 after a two-year struggle with congestive heart failure.