35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Super Hero A. PHILIP RANDOLPH

A. Philip Randolph 

A. Philip Randolph fought a lifelong battle to provide fair employment opportunities for African Americans. His work as a trade unionist and organizer directly resulted in the establishment of the first successful Black labor union, the desegregation of the armed forces, and the end of employment discrimination by companies and government bureaus involved in the defense industry. 

Randolph pioneered the use of mass, nonviolent, direction-action protests to win gains from the federal government that benefited African Americans. His methods were replicated in the Civil Rights Movement, of which Randolph served as senior statesman. 

He was born April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida, to middle-class parents. Randolph moved to New York City in 1911 because he was unable to find decent work in his native Florida. That experience had an indelible effect on him, marking the beginning of his struggle to secure the rights of the Black working class. Almost immediately, Randolph became involved in union efforts and socialist politics in New York. He also attended the City College of New York, taking classes in political science, economics, philosophy, and history. In 1912, he founded an employment agency and attempted to organize Black workers.

In 1917, following America's entry into World War I, Randolph and friend Chandler Owen founded the first Black Socialist paper, The Messenger (later called The Black Worker), which called for increased hiring of African Americans in the war industry and armed forces. Randolph also helped organize the Socialist Party's first all-Black political club in New York City. 

Eventually, he relinquished his formal ties to the party, but he continued to consider himself a Democratic Socialist. Randolph was also president of the National Negro Congress, but he left that organization because it was dominated by Communists. 

His growing reputation as a labor organizer brought Randolph to the attention of the Black porters, who took care of passengers on Pullman sleeping car trains. Being a Pullman porter was a plum job for Blacks, but the porters were still besieged with poor working conditions, including low pay and long hours. 

In 1925, Randolph was hired as an organizer and founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Pullman Company had crushed earlier efforts by the porters to organize. Randolph fought the Pullman Company for 12 years, but in 1937, the company signed a major labor contract with the Brotherhood. Randolph had forged the first successful Black trade union, which he took into the American Federation of Labor (AFL), despite the discrimination in its own ranks. 

Randolph's success with Pullman launched his ascension as a national Black leader. Following the certification of the Brotherhood as a bargaining agent, he returned to his fight for Black inclusion in the military and the defense industry. He threatened to lead a massive march on Washington, D.C. in 1941 and bring an invasion of thousands of Blacks to the White House lawn. 

Fearing that Randolph was successfully mobilizing the forces needed to make the march a reality, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order banning discrimination by companies with defense contracts. For the first time, the federal government said racial discrimination was wrong and committed itself to fair employment practices.

The success of that effort gave Randolph leverage to lay down another threat. He proposed that Blacks boycott the draft. The potential of this confrontation may have influenced President Harry Truman to issue an executive order in 1948 to ban segregation in the military. Though Randolph didn't follow through with either threat, the results revealed the power of mass demonstrations. 

Randolph spent the 1950s pursuing civil rights activities, particularly in the field of labor. After the AFL merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1955, Randolph became the only Black member of the organization's Executive Council. In 1960, he used that platform to establish the Negro American Labor Council to attack segregation in the AFL-CIO. 

The culmination of his career came when Randolph, at the age of 74, served as director and chairman of the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. for Jobs and Freedom. The next year, President Lyndon Johnson presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. 

Randolph remained involved in his activities as a vice president of the AFL-CIO until 1968, focusing on ending discrimination in unions. He also attacked Black separatism on college campuses. His criticism of the union often landed him in hot water with union brass. By the end of his labor career, Randolph's agitation had transformed the labor movement and laid the groundwork for the modern civil rights era.

Randolph died May 16, 1979, at the age of 90.

From Great African Americans.  Copyright, Publications International, Ltd.