Walter Tillow was an active figure in the civil rights movement in the South during the period of intense civil rights activism from 1963 to 1965. He later played a prominent role in the antiwar movement in the Pittsburgh area and more recently has worked as an organizer for various labor unions in western Pennsylvania. Tillow was born on January 12, 1940 in New York City and graduated from William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx. He attended Harpur College of the State University of New York at Binghamton and received a degree in economics in 1961. During the academic years 1961-62 and 1962-63 he studied in the graduate schools of the University of Washington and Cornell University.
Tillow became involved in civil rights activities as an undergraduate and participated in picketing campaigns against corporations which operated segregated facilities in the southern states. He first went South in April, 1963 to attend a conference hosted by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating committee (SNCC) and then returned to spend the summer working as a SNCC “field secretary” with the Somerville Movement, a voter registration and education project in Fayette County in southwest Tennessee. In the fall of 1963 Tillow joined the staff of SNCC, first as a researcher and later as manager of the Atlanta office. In December, 1963 he was named to the board of directors of Operation Freedom, an organization which was based in Cincinnati and concerned with desegregation and voter registration, mainly in southwest Tennessee.
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and its challenge to the Democratic National Convention at Atlantic City were Tillow's chief concerns through most of 1964. He remained a member of the SNCC staff but was assigned to work with the new Mississippi party. In May he moved from Atlanta to Washington where he set up an office with the purpose of lobbying in Congress to gain support for the MFDP. During the summer he attended state Democratic conventions in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota to urge passage of resolutions supporting the MFDP. At the Democratic National Convention Tillow was in charge of Atlantic City arrangements and accommodations for the Mississippians.
Tillow returned to Atlanta and continued to work with SNCC until mid-1965 when he resigned and moved to Pittsburgh, where he has remained. He has worked for a series of labor unions, and between 1965 and 1967 he was prominent in the Pittsburgh Committee To End The War In Vietnam.
