Randolph, A. Philip (1889–1979)

A. Philip Randolph worked tirelessly as a trade unionist and civil rights activist for African Americans. The son of a Methodist minister, he was born on April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida. After attending Cook Institute (later called Bethune-Cookman College) in Jacksonville, he moved to Harlem in New York City in 1911. He became an accomplished orator and spokesman for black labor issues. He and Chandler Owen, a law student at Columbia University, founded the Messenger, for which they both wrote articles advocating socialism and unionism as means to achieve racial uplift and improvement.

In 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), comprised mostly of black porters who worked on Pullman cars. In 1935, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) extended a charter [Page 1197]to the BSCP. Two years later, the Pullman Company signed a contract with the BSCP, cementing Randolph's credentials as an accomplished labor unionist.

In 1941, Randolph threatened to mobilize an all-black march of 100,000 people on Washington, D.C., if discriminatory practices in federal agencies and defense plants went unchecked. He also lobbied for integration of the nation's armed forces. After a White House conference with Randolph, President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded by passing Executive Order 8802, which created the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Randolph employed a similar strategy when he organized the League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation in the late 1940s. His pressure tactics succeeded again. On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which integrated the nation's armed forces.

When the AFL merged with the Congress of Industrial Organization in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO, Randolph was one of the two African American vice presidents of the executive board. He used this prominent position to work for greater integration within unions. At the same time, he worked with younger civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., to promote the cause of black equality.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Randolph grew frustrated with the slow pace of public school integration. In 1957, he organized the Pilgrimage for Prayer, a mass demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial. Unlike his proposed March on Washington in 1941, this event was racially integrated. His most successful achievement came in August 1963, when he helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. More than 250,000 attended the event, the largest public protest in the nation's history at that time. That event culminated with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Declining health forced Randolph to retire from public life in 1968. He died on May 16, 1979, at the age of 90.