BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Asa Philip Randolph
Asa Philip Randolph: Champion of Labor Rights and Civil Rights
Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), the first successful African-American-led labor union. In the early Civil Rights Movement and the Labor Movement, Randolph was a prominent voice. His continuous agitation with the support of fellow labor rights activists against racist labor practices helped lead President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue an Executive Order (EO) in 1941. This order banned discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully maintained pressure, so that President Harry S. Truman proposed a new Civil Rights Act and issued an EO in 1948, This order promoted fair employment and anti-discrimination policies in federal government hiring, and ending racial segregation in the armed services.
Randolph was born and raised in Crescent City FL. He was a superior student and educated at Cookman Institute in Jacksonville FL He moved to New York City as part of the early Great Migration. One of his primary interests was workers’ rights and he found success in organizing for African American workers’ rights.
In New York, he became familiar with socialism and the ideologies espoused by the Industrial Workers of the World. His argument was people could be free only if not subject to economic deprivation. He developed a form of civil rights activism which emphasized the importance of collective action as a way for Black people to gain legal and economic equality. He and Chandler Owen, a Columbia Law School Student, opened an employment office in Harlem to provide job training for southern migrants and encourage them to join trade unions.
Randolph’s first experience with labor organization came in 1917, when he organized a union of elevator operators in New York City. In 1919 he became president of the National Brotherhood of Workers of America, a union of African-American shipyard and dock workers in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Pressure from the American Federation of Labor dissolved the union.
Randolph’s greatest success came with the BSCP, which elected him president in 1925. This was the first serious effort to form a labor institution for employees of the Pullman Company, a major employer of African Americans. Porters were not unionized, most had poor working conditions and were underpaid.
Under Randolph’s direction, the BSCP enrolled 51 percent of porters within a year, to which Pullman responded with violence and firings. In 1928, after failing to win mediation under the Watson-Parker Railway Labor Act, Randolph planned a strike. It was postponed after rumors circulated that Pullman had 5,000 replacement workers ready to take the place of the BSCP members. Membership in the union declined and the BSCP headquarters could not support itself.
The BSCP’s fortunes changed with the 1932 election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. With amendments to the Railway Labor Act in 1934, porters were granted rights under federal law. Membership in the BSCP jumped to more than 7,000. The Pullman Company began to negotiate with the BSCP and agreed to a contract in 1937. Employees gained $2,000,000 in pay increases, a shorter workweek, and overtime pay. Randolph maintained the Brotherhood’s affiliation with the American Federation of Labor through the 1955 AFL-CIO merger.
Through his success with the BSCP, Randolph emerged as one of the most visible spokespeople for African-American civil rights. In 1963, Randolph was the head of the March on Washington for jobs and freedom, at which Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. Randolph inspired the “Freedom Budget”, sometimes called the “Randolph Freedom budget”, which aimed to deal with the economic problems facing the Black community.
During his lifetime and after, Randolph received many awards and accolades; train, library, museum, park, statues, documentaries, buildings, streets and schools all named in his honor along with:
– Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 from President Lyndon B. Johnson.
– NAACP’s Spingarn Medal
– IBPOEW (Black Elks) Elijah P. Lovejoy Medal
– Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Adam Clayton Powell Award
– Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame
– Labor Hall of Fame