Description:

Born in 1952, Rick Landman grew up in New York City. The child of German Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust, he relates the experiences of his family members, including his father's arrest during Kristallnacht. He attended college at the University of Buffalo, where he founded the Gay Liberation Front. He went on to earn two master's degrees at the University of Buffalo and a Master's in City and Regional Planning at Rutgers in 1977. While at Rutgers, he frequented Manny's Den, a bar in New Brunswick. In the interview, he shares the history of Manny's Den and owner Richard Mack's involvement in the landmark case One Eleven Wines and Liquors, Inc., A New Jersey Corporation, v. Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (1967), which legalized gay bars in the state. At the start of his career, Landman worked in New York City for the Division of Real Property and then for a private firm. He describes his experiences in New York City during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He went on to earn a J.D. at New York Law School. He founded the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors and has done work nationally and internationally in Holocaust remembrance.

In the second session, he discusses going to law school at New York Law School in the mid-1980s and then getting a job at New York University in administration. He became involved in the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights and discusses the movement for marriage equality. He taught at New York Law School and also became involved in various social justice movements. He reflects on his activism, beginning with founding the Gay Liberation Front, and describes the first gay rights march on Albany in 1971 and later on Washington, DC in 1979. A member of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) since 1973, he traces his involvement in the congregation over the course of his adult life. Landman is a writer, educator, speaker and tour guide. He is the author of The Book of Rick: Part One: Living with Contradictions. He maintains the website Infotrue Educational Experiences (http://infotrue.com/).