Originally from East New York, Marty Needelman has lived and worked in Williamsburg since arriving as a VISTA lawyer in 1969. As staff attorney and later director of Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation “A”, he has tirelessly represented residents of Williamsburg on issues relating to community control of education, integration of the construction trades, immigration and tenants rights. In 1986 [?] he played a leading role in the struggle to eliminate the wall that local school officials built to create a segregated wing of PS 16 for the exclusive use of Hasidic girls. An observant Jew, Marty Needelman has faced tremendous opposition and personal attacks for “betraying his own people” from Williamsburg’s hasidic community for his advocacy on behalf of Blacks and Latinos in their struggle to be free of the injustices caused by government discrimination in favor of the hasidic community.
In 1976, community residents of Williamburg’s Southside formed the Fair Housing Committee to resist racial discrimination against Blacks and Latinos in government-subsidized housing. Over the years, the Committee has also taken on other neighborhood issues such as policing and education. The Committee has fought for over two decades to put and end to the New York City Housing Authority’s use of racial quotas in three local public housing developments. Despite over 20 years of litigation, demonstrations and federal court orders, these developments remain majority white/hasidic. The Fair housing committee has recently filed a new motion charging the Housing Authority with contempt of the original 1978 court order and is gearing up to renew the struggle this fall.