A. Philip Randolph

American labor leader

• Born: April 15, 1889
• Birthplace: Crescent City, Florida
• Died: May 16, 1979
• Place of death: New York, New York

Having a passionate desire for economic justice and an unwavering advocacy for social and political equality among all persons, Randolph significantly improved the status of African American labor and greatly advanced the civil rights of minority people throughout the United States.

Early Life

A. Philip Randolph was born to Elizabeth Randolph from Baldwin, Florida, and the youngest of four daughters born to James and Mary Robinson, and James William Randolph, a descendant of slaves who worked for the Virginia planter John Randolph. A devoted member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, Elizabeth was an intelligent and proud woman who deeply resented bigotry and segregation, and her father, James Robinson, independent and resourceful, supported his family by running a small lumber business that supplied pine logs, crossties, pulpwood, and other materials for the railroads and papermills in northern Florida. Philip’s father was born in 1864 and acquired a rudimentary education from northern missionaries who came South after the Civil War. He became an accomplished tailor and AME minister, serving several poor congregations in Jefferson County, Florida. Outraged by the failure of Reconstruction to secure full racial equality for black people, the itinerant preacher militantly fought to defend his community’s newly acquired political rights. James was also strongly influenced by Henry McNeal Turner, the AME bishop and Georgia legislator who sought better wages and living conditions for black workers. Elizabeth and James were married in 1885. They were to have two sons, James William, Jr. (1887), and later A. Philip. In 1891, the Randolphs moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where the family lived frugally in a modest home enriched with purpose, respect, and love.

Several influences shaped Philip’s formative years. He greatly admired his brother, a brilliant student, whom Philip readily acknowledged he “loved very much.” As youngsters, they often played roles championing the rights of blacks. They remained close friends until William’s death in 1928. Philip also revered his father and often accompanied him on house visits to his congregation. The boy basked in the prestige and respect shown his father throughout the community. His father’s moving speeches and effective sermons taught young Philip the value of having a social consciousness. Contributing to the family income, Philip worked at a number of jobs including store clerk, newsboy, errand runner, boxcar loader, and railroad section hand. He attended Cookman Institute High School in Jacksonville (later Bethune-Cookman College), where he took the classical course. A diligent student, he developed his elocution skills and did much reading both in and outside class. After graduation he decided to leave the South and go North; his move was an individual example of the great migration undertaken by thousands of other African Americans at the turn of the century to improve themselves economically.

Life’s Work

In 1911, Randolph arrived in were chosen and found residence in the Harlem section of upper Manhattan. During the day he worked odd jobs as a porter, waiter, elevator operator, and switchboard operator. In the evenings he enrolled in courses at the City College of New York; there he became interested in literature, especially the works of William Shakespeare, and honed his oratorical talent. He gave readings of the classics to church groups, to literary clubs, and at public forums. He took courses in history, political science, and economics. College life introduced him to socialism, the cause of the Industrial Workers of the World, the ideas of William D. (“Big Bill”) Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. While growing up in Jacksonville, he had read the works of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, but now he discovered Marxism and other radical approaches to ameliorating the difficulties facing the laboring classes.

Tall and handsome, he was a meticulous, clean-cut dresser who paid careful attention to his grooming. As he matured into a confident yet disciplined young man, his baritone voice and sharp intellect presented a figure of considerable dignity whose presence commanded one’s undivided attention. He married Lucille Campbell Green in 1915, an attractive, socially exuberant manager of a Madam C. J. Walker beauty salon. Although six years his senior, she shared his interest in socialism, the classics, the welfare of African Americans, and concern for the working poor. They remained together until her death in 1963.

The seminal event that launched Randolph’s career as a labor and political activist occurred when he took a job as a waiter on the Fall River Line, which transported people from New York to Boston. Appalled at the cramped, squalid quarters of the employees, the long hours, and the low pay, he attempted to organize his fellow workers, whereupon he was fired by the steamboat company. Undaunted, he joined the Brotherhood of Labor Organization and helped to establish the Independent Political Council (1912).

In 1915, Randolph met Chandler Owen, a brilliant young intellectual who studied social sciences at Columbia University. They held similar political views and became great friends. It was a time of radical protest against brutal, intolerable working conditions in mills, mines, factories, and railroads across the nation. They joined the Socialist Party and believed that the only way to end black racial oppression in America was to attack the capitalistic economic system, which exploited both white and black workers by pitting them against one another, driving wages and living conditions down. Appeals to religious sentiment or humanistic ideals of fair play and equity were viewed as vacuous and pusillanimous. The majority of blacks were politically disfranchised. A successful strategy, they reasoned, must appeal to the economic self-interests of the parties involved. The solution was to forge black-white labor unity, have the laboring masses take control of the economic system from the capitalist classes, and establish a more equitable social system. Pragmatic and militant, their plan of action was to educate and organize African American workers. Randolph spoke from street-corner soapboxes, rallied opponents in social clubs, and debated opponents in public forums.

With Owen, Randolph published a monthly periodical, Messenger , subtitled “The Only Radical Negro Magazine in America.” In editorials they treated many issues: the need for solidarity among black and white workers, impotent black leadership, the socialist critique of capitalism, and creative use of boycotts by blacks to achieve their goals. For example, one 1919 editorial succinctly put it, in part,

Black and white workers should combine for no other reason than that for which individual workers should combine, viz., to increase their bargaining power, which will enable them to get their demands.

Second, the history of the labor movement in America proves that the employing class recognize no race lines. They will exploit a white man as readily as a black man. They will exploit women as readily as men. They will even go to the extent of coining the labor, blood and suffering of children into dollars. The introduction of women and children into the factories proves that capitalists are only concerned with profits and that they will exploit any race or class to make profits, whether they be black or white men, black or white women or black or white children.

As a pacifist, Randolph opposed the United States’ participation in World War I and was jailed for a short period of time because of his antiwar position. Randolph and Owen charged that W. E. B. Du Bois had failed as a theorist and offered no sound solutions to African American problems. They counseled blacks to eschew the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it was “controlled and dominated by a group who was neither Negro nor working people.” The editors claimed that capitalism was the real culprit responsible for the lynchings of more than three thousand African Americans that occurred between 1890 and 1920; they advocated the use of armed resistance to end this barbaric extralegal practice. Despite having fundamental political differences with Marcus Garvey, Randolph worked for a while with him and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Although Randolph staunchly opposed communism, he believed that the Russian Revolution was “the greatest achievement of the twentieth century.” Responding to Red-baiters who made no distinction between his support for socialism and disapproval of communism, he remarked,

If approval of the right to vote, based on service instead of race and color is Bolshevism, count us as Bolshevists. If our approval of the abolition of pogroms is Bolshevism, stamp us again with that epithet. If the demand for political and social equity is Bolshevism, label us once more. . . .

For several years during and after the Great War, Randolph worked to organize several trade unions, with little success. In 1925, he took up the causes of the porters and maids on the Pullman railroad cars who had failed in their attempts to organize. The problems confronting these largely black workers were shocking. They labored between three hundred and four hundred hours a month barely earning seventy-five dollars monthly in good years. These workers had to pay for their dining-car meals, uniforms, lodging, and other expenses while supporting families and homes. To gain better wages and shorter hours, Randolph and less than a dozen men formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, with Messenger as its official organ. By 1928, a majority of the maids and porters had joined the union. Randolph was labeled a dangerous agitator, Red, atheist, and radical an outsider who never had worked as a Pullman porter. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) refused to support the union, and the Railroad Labor Board would not protect it. The Interstate Commerce Commission declined to investigate labor complaints. The Brotherhood lost its first attempt to win concessions from the Pullman Company. While a solid core remained loyal, membership in the union declined thereafter. During the Great Depression, when the New Dealers sought to protect the rights of labor to bargain collectively with their employers, porters once again began joining the Brotherhood and by 1935 voted to have the union represent them. By 1937, the union secured an important contract with the Pullman Company, reducing hours to 240 a month, better working conditions and much higher pay. In less than twenty years, the union grew to become the most successful black labor organization in the nation, and Randolph was invited in 1957 to become a vice president of the newly merged AFL-CIO.

Randolph showed as much interest in politics as he had in labor organizing. While serving as president of the Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR) in 1935, he called for a united front of all black organizations (civic, labor, political) to abolish Jim Crow laws, attain civil rights, oppose fascism, and improve the economic status of African Americans. “True liberation,” he maintained,

can be acquired and maintained only when the Negro people possess power; and power is the product and flower of organization organization of the masses, the masses in the mills and mines, on the farms, in the factories, in churches, in fraternal organizations, in homes, colleges, women’s clubs, student groups, trade unions, tenant’s leagues, in cooperative guilds, political organizations and civil rights associations.

With the coming of World War II, African Americans were still being denied fair employment opportunities, and those working were not receiving the same pay as their white counterparts for doing the same work. Randolph made a bold yet brilliant move by threatening a massive nonviolent march on Washington to protest job discrimination. As enthusiasm for the protest grew, fear of hampering the nation’s war economy led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 , forbidding racial discrimination in employment by companies having defense contracts. A Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) was established to monitor the order and investigate violations.

During the late 1940’s, Randolph called for the complete desegregation of the United States armed forces. An ardent spokesperson for the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, he warned the government that he would lead a civil disobedience campaign to refuse registration and resist conscription into a Jim Crow army. Randolph’s popular support no doubt influenced President Harry S. Truman to begin desegregation of the military. In 1950, Randolph, along with others, established the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (composed of more than 157 national organizations representing blacks, Hispanics, Asians, labor, major religious denominations, women, the handicapped, and the aged) to guide President Truman’s efforts to achieve racial equality. The Negro American Labor Council was founded in 1960 because Randolph, as its president (from 1960 to 1966), believed that the AFL-CIO was doing “little more than paying lip service to desegregation in unions.” He was the prime mover behind the historic March on Washington for Civil Rights in 1963 involving a quarter of a million people.

Randolph retired from active political and labor work in 1968 to join for a brief period the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a labor research and information center directed by Bayard Rustin.

Significance

In numerous ways, A. Philip Randolph sought to secure economic opportunities, political power, and social justice for African Americans in particular and for all exploited and oppressed people in general. If the common people, the workers, unified and organized themselves, he believed that they would have the power in a democracy. In the early years, he had insisted that all ethnic groups and genders must fight together for their common rights. Although he continued to call for interracial solidarity throughout his life, he seemed to have lost faith that most white Americans would ever overcome their bigotry and racism. By the late 1930’s, he put less emphasis on his earlier belief in a united labor party and urged the formation of a “tightly organized Negro non-partisan bloc.”

With this concept, he galvanized the African American community for the threatened 1941 March on Washington . His masterful tactic was the most significant achievement initiated by any African American to achieve racial equality since emancipation. Extraordinary indeed, the federal government acceded to black demands. Although President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 was grossly undermined and the FEPC lacked strong enforcement power, for the first time in the nation’s history, African Americans by themselves had successfully compelled an administration to take action to improve their socioeconomic condition. It was a momentous event that marked a turning point in black-white relations. If for no other reason, this feat alone guaranteed Randolph an indelible place in the pages of United States history.

A. Philip Randolph was the consummate black political organizer of his age. He labored unrelentingly to get individuals and groups to put aside their divisive, parochial, and often petty concerns and close ranks in the formation of a mass movement for the common good. The foremost architect of the modern Civil Rights movement, he urged boycotts in the South against Jim Crow trains, buses, schools, and businesses. “Nonviolent Good Will Direct Action” is what he labeled his movement to gain social equality decades before Martin Luther King, Jr., and others emerged on the 1960’s political scene. If not the man himself, then his influence and ideas were at home at the forefront of virtually every civil rights campaign from the 1930’s through the 1960’s, including desegregation of public accommodations and schools, ending of restrictive covenants, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the 1957 March on Washington. Randolph is to be credited for his role in passage of the 1957, 1960, and 1964 civil rights acts and the voting rights bill of 1965 as well. As one award stated: “No individual did more to help the poor, the dispossessed and the working class in the United States and around the world than A. Philip Randolph.”

Bibliography

Anderson, Jervis. A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. This work is the most complete treatment of the life and work of Randolph. Although a sympathetic account, a wide variety of sources, particularly useful interviews with Randolph and others, were used. A strength of this biography is the author’s conscientious effort to provide the historical background at each phase of Randolph’s long and illustrious career.

Foner, Philip S., and Ronald L. Lewis, eds. The Era of Post-War Prosperity and the Great Depression, 1920-1936. Vol. 6 in The Black Worker: A Documentary History from Colonial Times to the Present. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983. This volume and the following one in the set contain an invaluable collection of primary documents on a wide range of labor issues, not only those involving Randolph.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Black Worker from the Founding of the CIO to the AFL-CIO Merger, 1936-1955. Vol. 7 in The Black Worker: A Documentary History from Colonial Times to the Present. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983. Volume 7 of the set contains documents that give an indispensable account of the difficulties and aspirations of black trade unionism.

Garfinkel, Herbert. When Negroes March: The March on Washington Movement in the Organizational Politics for FEPC. New York: Atheneum, 1959, 1969. This is the first major treatment of the proposed March on Washington in 1941, initiated by Randolph. It is a well-reasoned, thoroughly documented examination of the central event in Randolph’s career and should be read by all scholars of the period.

Harris, William H. Keeping the Faith: A. Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925-37. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977. Harris’s study of the origins of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is the best scholarly account of the creation and development of the union. The author’s thorough research and thoughtful analysis of the problems, mistakes, and successes of this organization tell much about black trade unionism in particular and national opposition to it in general.

Kersten, Andrew E. A. Philip Randolph: A Life in the Vanguard. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Examines Randolph’s influences and accomplishments as both a civil rights and labor leader.

Marable, Manning. “A. Philip Randolph: A Political Assessment.” In From the Grassroots: Essays Toward Afro-American Liberation. Boston: South End Press, 1980. Marable’s essay is a critical analysis of Randolph, suggesting that the leader became increasingly cautious and conservative as he won modest victories for labor and achieved limited civil rights reforms. A provocative essay, it deserves a careful reading.

Meier, August, Elliott Rudwick, and Francis L. Broderick, eds. Black Protest Thought in the Twentieth Century. 2d ed. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971. Several primary documents spanning Randolph’s career in labor and politics from 1919 to 1963 are made available in this collection. The volume is also useful for ideas and insights into other significant figures.

Rustin, Bayard. Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971. This collection of essays has several partisan articles on various aspects of Randolph’s philosophy and activities. Most of the selections on Randolph deal with his later years and offer an interesting, if not polemical, interpretation of the labor leader by his longtime colleague and friend.

Taylor, Cynthia. A. Philip Randolph: The Religious Journey of an African American Labor Leader. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Chronicles Randolph’s life within the context of African American religious history and describes how Randolph, an African Methodist, held a wide spectrum of Protestant beliefs.