Lee Lorch the mathematician born in New York graduated in 1935 before becoming involved with the American civil rights movement.
Lee Alexander Lorch (September 20, 1915  February 28, 2014) was an American mathematician, early civil rights activist, and communist. He was born in New York City to Adolph Lorch and Florence Mayer Lorch. He graduated from Cornell University in 1935 and obtained his PhD in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati in 1941. Lorch obtained a teaching position at the City College of New York following the war but was soon fired because of his civil rights work on behalf of African-Americans. 
