Randolph, A. Philip

(1889–1979)

Labor and Civil Rights Leader

Asa Philip Randolph, commonly known as A. Philip Randolph, was one of the nation's foremost labor and civil rights leaders. In a career that spanned both world wars, [Page 705]Randolph consistently saw African American racial justice as a corollary of economic justice. As such, he dedicated his life to fulfilling the promise of racial and industrial democracy for black and working people. During both world wars, Randolph fearlessly demanded social and economic justice for African Americans and workers of all colors despite government efforts to intimidate and subdue him.

Randolph was born on April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida. Randolph's father, an African Methodist Episcopal preacher, instilled in his son the value of education, collective solidarity, and responsibility to the race. In 1907, Randolph graduated from Cookman Institute, the first high school for African Americans in Florida. Faced with minimal social and economic possibilities, Randolph, like thousands of other African Americans from the rural and small-town South, moved to New York City in 1911.

Randolph quickly became immersed in Harlem's rich cultural, political, and intellectual milieu. While working odd jobs, he attended night classes at City College of New York (CCNY), where he studied economics, sociology, and philosophy. This provided Randolph with his first exposure to Marxist theory and provided the intellectual foundation for his subsequent attraction to socialism. In 1915 Randolph met Chandler Owen, a student in politics and sociology at Columbia University who shared his affinity for radical social change.

Randolph's commitment to socialism solidified through participation in a student group at CCNY and by attending lectures at the Rand School, where he developed a relationship with Eugene Debs, the five-time Socialist Party candidate for president. Randolph became a well-known soapbox orator in Harlem and translated his burgeoning socialist ideology to action by attempting to organize workers. He formally joined the Socialist Party in 1917 and challenged other young black radical intellectuals to move beyond a narrow focus on race and place the plight of the black working class in the broader context of an integrated struggle for social and economic justice.

The political and intellectual ferment of World War I further radicalized Randolph's politics. The Russian Revolution in 1917 brought Marxism as a solution to the struggles of oppressed peoples throughout the world into increased focus. For African Americans, the war tested the rhetoric and reality of democracy for a nation steeped in white supremacy.

In 1917, Randolph, along with Chandler Owen, founded The Messenger newspaper. The Messenger allowed Randolph to make use of both his piercing analytical insight and dynamic organizational skills. The newspaper distinguished itself as one of the most influential African American periodicals of the war and postwar period, a time when radical black periodical culture flourished. Randolph and Owen firmly believed African Americans’ best hopes rested in class-based interracial cooperation. The Messenger forcefully criticized black social and political leaders spanning a broad ideological spectrum, on one page lambasting W.E.B. Du Bois's bourgeois accommodationism and on another denouncing Marcus Garvey's messianistic racial nationalism. The paper earned the dubious distinction as “the most dangerous of all the Negro publications” from Attorney Gen. Mitchell Palmer. Through speeches and the pages of Messenger, Randolph assumed the stance of a conscientious objector to the war and encouraged African Americans to avoid military service. For this reason Justice Department officers arrested Randolph along with Owen for violating the 1917 Espionage Act during a rally in Cleveland, Ohio.

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