Norman Hill

Norman Hill (born April 22, 1933 in Summit, New Jersey) is an influential African-American administrator, activist and labor leader. He attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania and received a bachelor’s degree in 1956 in the field of sociology. He was one of the first African-Americans to graduate from Haverford. After college, Hill served in the military. After returning from military service, he moved to Chicago to join in the Civil Rights Movement and to pursue a master's degree in the University of Chicago School of Social Welfare, which he dropped in favor of more direct social action. Hill was appointed Chicago Coordinator and held various positions in projects around Chicago, including Youth March for Integrated Schools, Secretary of Chicago Area Negro American Labor Council, and Staff Chairman of the Chicago March Conventions.

Another endeavor Hill joined was the Congress of Racial Equality. In this organization, Hill was first the East Coast Field Secretary and then moved his way up to the position of National Program Director. As National Program Director, Hill coordinated the route 40 desegregation of restaurants, the Waldorf campaign, and illustrated the civil rights demonstration that took place at the 1964 Republican National Convention.

From 1964 to 1967, Norman Hill served as the Legislative Representative and Civil Rights Liaison of the Industrial Union department of the AFL-CIO. He was involved in the issue of raising minimum wage and the labor delegation on the Selma to Montgomery marches against racial discrimination in politics and voting in the southern United States.

In 1967, Hill became active in the A. Philip Randolph Institute. He began as Associate Director, but later became Executive Director, and finally President. As Associate Director, Hill coordinated and organized the Memphis March in 1968, after Martin Luther King’s assassination. In his career at the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Hill created over two hundred local chapters of this organization across the United States.

In 1969, Norman Hill also had a lead role in the controversial movie Burn!, starring Marlon Brando and Evaristo Marquez and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, about the impact and morality of an English mercenary on the slave revolt of an 'imaginary' Caribbean island of Queimada.