A. Robert Kaufman (Baltimore, Annapolis, Mount Vernon: insurance, tenants, theater)

[barante]

This is a reminder for those who knew him that a memorial service for A. Robert Kaufman will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 6, at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation on Park Heights Avenue.
Bob was a lifelong activist who was loved by a few, tolerated by some and hated by many. He was a good guy, but very difficult. If you did him a favor, he was likely to insult you. He ran for mayor for a couple of times and was always advocating one cause or another. He was a driving force behind the Citywide Coalition which tried to set up a nonprofit auto insurance company to lower rates. Bob was full of contradictions: He claimed to be a Trotskyite (although he possessed little or no theoretical understanding) but was a slum landlord. He was nearly fatally injured when one of his tenants, for whom he was trying to do a favor, bludgeoned him. He never fully recovered.
Bob was a lifelong civil rights activist and the last link to the Fellowship House, a small group of dogooders who organized desegregation protests at the old Ford's Theater and other venues before such protests became a commonplace. They had a meeting place in Mount Vernon which at one time was about the only place in segregated Baltimore where whites and blacks coud meet and socialize.
His death is another reminder that the number of early civil rights activists is growing smaller and smaller.

[RobinfromBaltimoreDays]

I don't know if Bob ever loved me, but he cared deeply, as I cared for him. He would let me stay with him for fairly long periods of time in '61 and again in '62. We then saw each other two other times -- once while I was living in CT and again in Annapolis in '87. He hadn't changed! In the early '60s he was both a protector and mentor as I was young and flapping around, wanting to understand the left, but mostly I wanted to get fully submersed in the civil rights movement. It was through Bob that I was able to find a place for myself within the movement during those very heady years, participating in local sit-ins and riding a Freedom Bus to the Eastern Shore.

According to the writer of this article Bob had little or no theoretical understanding about the Trotskyism he held to, he certainly gave me a pile of books and phamplets to read, then proceeded to quiz me on them like any pedagogue would. I usually didn't get any gold stars... At the same he was protective and looked out for my welfare when I either couldn't or wouldn't. I am sorry I am only now hearing about his death and the struggles he was enduring during his last years. For all his belligerence, at heart he was a good man who just wanted people to hear and truly consider his POV. In another age he could have been a rather quarrelsome scholar -- he before then he had to change the world! The spirit of Bob has remained with me after all these years. If nothing else he was a true son of radical Baltimore.

[feck]

A. Robert Kaufman will always be remembered by me
for his efforts to reduce the cost of auto insurance in
Baltimore City. He made vocal the blatant redlining of
the city by the major insurance agencies (it's still being
done). He at least tried to counter the majors by starting
an agency that provided much lower rates.

Alas, the people who would be best served by the agency
gave it little to no support revealing their willingness to be
exploited by the brands.

[Infinite_heights77]

Rest in peace A. Robert Kaufman!