Former Rouse Co. executive and Baltimore real estate agent Malcolm Sherman, 87, died Nov. 19, 2009, of pneumonia at the Broadmead retirement community, in Cockeysville.

Friends and family members remembered Mr. Sherman as a man who worked to ensure equality and to integrate segregated neighborhoods.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Sherman, known as "Mal" to friends and acquaintances, was sent abroad to Lausanne, Switzerland, for boarding school after his father passed away in 1927. He returned to New York in 1932 and graduated from Horace Mann School, in New York.

Two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. During the Guadalcanal campaign, he was wounded and honorably discharged at the end of the war, according to an obituary published in the Baltimore Sun.

In 1943 he married Miriam "Mimi" Heller, and moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a salesman.

Six years later, the couple relocated to Baltimore, to be closer to Miriam's family, said his daughter, Wendy Sherman.

Wendy Sherman said her mother and father were Columbia pioneers and one of the first families to move to the area. "My mother and father were both very involved in the growth of Columbia," she said.

Mr. Sherman's wife at one point was head of the Wilde Lake Community Association.

Mr. Sherman started Mal Sherman Inc. Realtors after obtaining his real estate license, and his staff included women, which was rare for that time.

Mr. Sherman also hired Lee Martin, a black real estate agent, in 1960. In a news conference at the time, he said that "regardless of race, creed or color" he would sell to anyone, according to the Sun.

Baltimore Oriole Frank Robinson asked Mr. Sherman to find him a home in a white neighborhood when he came to the baseball team in 1966, according to Wendy Sherman.

"He took huge economic hits because of the stance he took on open housing," she said.

Mr. Sherman became a part of the Rouse Co. in 1967 as residential land sales director, and in 1971 he became vice president.

Wendy Sherman said her father worked with Rouse to ensure Columbia was multi-ethnic and integrated. "He was very committed to Jim Rouse's vision of Columbia," she said.

Mr. Sherman left the Rouse Co. in the early 1970s and went to work for a real estate firm in Atlanta. He was later named the firm's Baltimore-Washington area regional vice president and returned to the area. He retired in 2001.

Padraic Kennedy, a former neighbor and Columbia Association president from 1972-1998, wrote in a letter to Patuxent Publishing, "Mal was a major force in helping Columbia become a truly open community. Columbia is forever indebted to that compassionate, caring, good man.

"Next to Jim Rouse, he probably did more than anyone to help Columbia become an open and racially integrated community."

A founder of the United Nations Veterans League, Mr. Sherman also was a former president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Baltimore, and was appointed to the Equal Opportunity for Housing in America Committee by President Kennedy.

He was preceded in death by his wife; his son, Douglas Sherman; and his sibling, Audrey Stanfield.

He is survived by two daughters, Wendy Sherman, of Bethesda, and Andrea Sherman, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.; sons-in-law Kevin Gormley and Bruce Stokes; and his grandchildren, Erik Sherman Gormley and Sarah Sherman-Stokes.

Memorial contributions may be sent to Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore, 101 W. Mt. Royal Ave., Baltimore, MD 21201, or the ACLU, 3600 Clipper Mill, Suite 350, Baltimore, MD 21211, or a charity of your choice.

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