Robert Curvin
Political Scientist, Advocate for the Poor
An advocate for social justice and equality, Robert Curvin’s work has touched communities and changed lives across the nation
Robert Curvin devoted 12 years to the Ford Foundation before becoming president of the Greentree Foundation, a trust established by the late Mrs. John Hay Whitney to adapt the Whitneys’ 400-acre Long Island estate into a retreat center for the United Nations and other international organizations. Curvin, a former dean of the Milano School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University and a past director of the Revson Foundation, has been a trustee of Fund for the City of New York, the Victoria Foundation, Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Thirteen/WNET, and Princeton University. While a member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 1978–84, Curvin brought national attention to issues of social justice, equality, and homelessness. He coauthored Blackout Looting, about the violence and vandalism during the 1977 blackout in New York. During the 1960s, he helped found Newark’s New Community Corporation (one of the first of its kind) and was a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, serving as Newark chapter head and as national vice chair.