Vic Rosenthal
*Vic Rosenthal was born on this date in 1955. He was a white Jewish-American community organizer, educator, and social, racial, and economic justice activist.
Victor Rosenthal was born in the Bronx in New York City after his grandparents fled the Russian Pogroms. He was raised in Yonkers and received his B.A. in history from SUNY Binghamton and his M.A. in public administration from Rutgers University. While at SUNY, Rosenthal was introduced to community organizing, working first to prevent energy shutoffs in New York and becoming a VISTA volunteer organizing senior citizens in Ohio.
In 1986, Rosenthal and his family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. Initially serving as the Executive Director of the Minnesota Senior Federation, Rosenthal received the Bush Fellowship in 1997. Through those resources, he became the Executive Director of Jewish Community Action (JCA), a multifaith and multiracial nonprofit for social justice. Fighting Minnesota racial inequalities became a cornerstone of JCA's efforts under Rosenthal's leadership. Also, in 1998, he started as an adjunct professor at Metro State University, teaching political science and community organizing courses for two decades.
His activism included helping predominantly Black families in North Minneapolis keep their homes during the 2008 foreclosure crisis. In 2012, Rosenthal and JCA helped Minnesota become the first state to defeat state referendums that would have prohibited same-sex marriage and required I.D.s to vote on election day, a tactic of voter suppression against the state's Blacks. In the lead-up to the Green Line light rail train's launch in 2014, JCA worked on the Stops for Us campaign to ensure that the train did not skip over Black communities in the Midway and Frogtown neighborhoods.
In 2008, after an immigration raid at a Kosher meat-packing facility in Postville, Iowa, Rosenthal led an effort to bring justice to the impacted immigrant communities and hold the plant leadership responsible for worker exploitation. In St. Paul, Rosenthal worked to build affordable housing. He led initiatives, such as inclusionary zoning and an ordinance calling for separation between the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the St. Paul's government.
After retiring from JCA in 2017, Rosenthal launched an effort to organize diverse communities of elders to raise and strengthen their voices in support of social justice. Rosenthal was also appointed as a member of the St. Paul City Reparations Legislative Advisory Committee in 2021, an effort that culminated in establishing the St. Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission in 2023.
He was honored with a proclamation from St. Paul mayor Melvin Carter declaring March 18, 2023, Vic Rosenthal Day in the city. In a speech from his hospice bed after receiving the proclamation, he called for St. Paul to do more to pursue reparations for the city's African American community. Vic Rosenthal died on March 28, 2023.
