It would be difficult to write about African Americans and labor without writing about A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) and the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. The BSCP was the first all-Black successful labor unions in the United States. A. Philip Randolph was a black civil rights leader who became a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Because of his skills as a public speaker and his role in editing the Messenger magazine, Randolph became the leader of the BSCP which was organized in 1925.
He later became the Director for the March on Washington with the ‘Big Six’ and others. The march took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. The ‘Big Six’ included James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality; John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; A. Philip Randolph of the Negro American Labor Council; Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Whitney Young of the National Urban League. (This writer found her first job as an adult at Wisconsin Bell, Milwaukee, WI, as a long distance operator, through the Urban League in 1971)
Randolph influenced labor by his beliefs that unions could help end some discrimination. He helped gain employment for many African Americans. He, like Dr. King, Jr. believed that equality in employment could be achieved by non-violent protests. He taught other leaders how to protest non-violently. He influenced the desegregation of the military during World War II. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed an executive order to ban segregation in the U.S. military.
Randolph founded the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In 1964, Randolph received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson. He received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1942. He retired as president of the BSCP and public life in 1968. On May 16, 1979, Randolph died at age 90 in New York City. There is so much more that Asa Philip Randolph accomplished that one must read his biography. There are many schools, street, museums, buildings named after him. Amtrak named one of its best Sleeping Cars, Superliner II 32503 in his honor.
Comentarios