Randolph, Asa Philip

RANDOLPH, ASA PHILIP

Asa Philip Randolph (1889–1979) was an American labor and civil rights leader. During the first half of the twentieth century he was considered one of the most prominent of all African American trade unionists as well as one of the major figures in the African American struggle for civil rights. He maintained that African Americans could never be politically free until they were economically secure, and so Randolph became the foremost advocate of the full integration of black workers into the American trade union movement. In 1925 he organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), which was the first African-American union in the country to sign a labor contract with a white employer.

In 1889 Asa Philip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida, the son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister. Randolph graduated from the Cookman Institute in Florida in 1907, at the top of his class.

Randolph was a good singer and actor. The idea of becoming a professional performer led him to New York, where he found himself working as a delivery driver, sales clerk, and a laborer on the railroad. In 1911 he moved to Harlem, where most African Americans in New York lived during that era. Harlem was the nation's capital of black intellectual life at that time and the center of what would later be called the Harlem Renaissance.

In Harlem Randolph turned to politics instead of the stage. He began attending City College of New York (CCNY), studying history, philosophy, and economics. In college he made friends with political radicals and founded the Independent Political Council in 1913, a radical current affairs group. He also worked on the campaign of socialist John Royal who was running for city council.

By 1914 Randolph met Ernest Welcome and began working for Welcome's Brotherhood of Labor, an organization that brought workers from the South and helped them find jobs in New York. Randolph also married Lucille Campbell that year. She supported Randolph economically as he pursued his political activism. In 1915 Randolph began to emerge as a dominant voice in the "New Negro movement." In 1917 he co-produced the first issue of The Messenger, a journal that became what Randolph called "the first voice of radical, revolutionary, economic, and political action among Negroes in America." The Messenger has been regarded by scholars as among the most brilliantly edited magazines in African-American publishing.

In 1925 Randolph became the leader of a campaign to organize the African American men who employed as porters aboard most trains in the United States. In 1937, after years of continuous work, the first contract was signed between a white employer and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was a milestone for African American workers and the labor movement.

By 1940 Randolph was deeply involved in the black civil rights movement. During World War II (1939–1945) he planned a massive march on Washington, D.C. to protest the exclusion of African Americans from working jobs in defense industries. He agreed to call off the march only after President Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945) issued Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense plants and created the nation's first Fair Employment Practices Committee.

In 1948 Randolph once again initiated strategic efforts to enhance civil rights for African Americans. He warned President Harry Truman, (1945–1953) that if segregation in the armed forces was not abolished, then masses of African Americans would refuse military induction. Truman soon issued Executive Order 9981, establishing "equality of treatment" in the armed forces.

Randolph continued his civil rights work on behalf of African Americans. In the 1950s he organized youth marches to integrate schools. It was Randolph who organized the famous march on Washington in 1963, when Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) gave his now famous "I Have a Dream" speech to a quarter million people who came to the nation's capital.

Randolph's career reads like a history of struggles for unionization, worker equity, and civil rights in the twentieth century. His efforts focused on securing political freedom for African Americans by creating greater economic security. He created unions and organized millions of people in the Civil Rights Movement. Randolph died in 1979, having realized many of his goals for African Americans and civil rights.

See also: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Civil Rights Movement, Labor Movement

FURTHER READING

Anderson, Jervis. A. Philip Randolph; a Biographical Portrait. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Davis, Daniel S. Mr. Black Labor; the Story of A. Philip Randolph, Father of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1972.

Harris, William H. Keeping the Faith: A. Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925–1937. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

Pfeffer, Paula F. A. Philip Randolph, Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1990.

during the first half of the twentieth century he was considered one of the most prominent of all african american trade unionists as well as one of the major figures in the african american struggle for civil rights.