In 1898, nine-year-old Asa Philip Randolph watched his mother patrol the front room of their Jacksonville, Florida, home with a loaded shotgun. His father, a mild-mannered tailor and part-time preacher, had just grabbed a pistol and rushed down to the county jail, where he and other armed Black men would successfully stop a lynching.
August 28 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many remember the iconic speech delivered there by the thirty-four-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. But it was a lifetime of struggle and organizing by A. Philip Randolph, then seventy-four, that made the event a reality.
Randolph’s parents valued education, and their son attended the only academic high school in Florida open to African Americans. He graduated valedictorian in 1907 and four years later moved to New York City with hopes of becoming an actor.
Instead, his interest veered toward political activism. Influenced by the democratic socialism of Eugene Debs, who ran for president four times, Randolph helped found a radical newspaper called The Messenger. In 1918 Randolph was arrested for distributing copies in Ohio. The U.S. Attorney General labeled him the “most dangerous Negro in America.”
Because of the paper’s coverage of labor issues, a group of Pullman porters approached Randolph in 1925 and asked him to lead their organization. These railroad workers, employed by the monopoly that ran the nation’s sleeping cars, did servile work to accommodate passengers. They put in long hours for low pay with no hope of promotion. Randolph led a hard-fought campaign on behalf of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African-American union in the country. They finally won recognition in 1935.
Randolph first conceived the idea of a march on Washington in 1940. Its purpose was to eliminate discrimination against Blacks in defense industries. In June 1941, six days before the scheduled event, President Roosevelt issued an executive order barring the injustice —the march was no longer needed. Next, Randolph’s threatened to organize resistance to the 1947 Selective Service Act, which established a peacetime draft. As a result, Harry Truman ordered an end to segregation in the armed forces.
The civil rights leader continued to work on labor issues during the 1950s, serving as vice president of the AFL-CIO. He studied Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent action and encouraged younger activists to follow a peaceful path toward social change.
In the early 1960s, Randolph envisioned a march on Washington to promote civil rights and to celebrate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. The year 1963 witnessed a growing backlash. Bawling, “Segregation forever!” Governor George Wallace blocked Black students from the University of Alabama. Bystanders attacked students sitting in at segregated lunch counters. Activist Medgar Evers was murdered from ambush in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
President Kennedy promised laws to bring an end the Jim Crow era. The leaders of a wide range of organizations got behind Randolph’s march in order to support Kennedy’s initiatives and draw attention to continuing discrimination.
That Wednesday in August was a mild eighty-four degrees in Washington, with a light breeze. The turnout was enormous — demonstrators from around the country rode 2,000 buses and 21 chartered trains to attend. They lined both sides of the National Mall facing the memorial to Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator.”
Once participants were assembled, Randolph opened the program with a short speech. Other civil rights leaders followed. Martin Luther King delivered the finale. He spoke eloquently about “the fierce urgency of now.” He told of his dream, “a dream deeply rooted in the American dream,” a dream that children of different races could join hands “as sisters and brothers,” a dream that the nation would “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”
King never mentioned “jobs,” the featured purpose of the march. Randolph did speak about economic justice, using words that many Americans considered heresy. “We must destroy the notion,” he said, “that property rights include the right to humiliate me because of the color of my skin.” He insisted that “the sanctity of private property takes second place to the sanctity of the human personality,” a fact that African Americans, whose ancestors had been property, understood better than anyone.
Randolph did not talk about dreams. “Look for the enemies of Medicare,” he declared, “of higher minimum wages, of Social Security, of federal aid to education and there you will find the enemy of the Negro.” He specifically called out “the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans,” who stood in the way of progress.
Randolph’s message was a sober one, delivered by a man who had spent more than half a century in the struggle for freedom. But on that August afternoon, even he could not have predicted that in less than three weeks, white supremacists would bomb a Birmingham church, killing four Black girls; or that five years later, Dr. King would be shot dead while supporting striking Memphis sanitation workers; or that the nation would still have so far to go to achieve equality in the distant year 2023.
Thanks for the introduction to a great Black American I didn't know about! It's also a reminder that the history we learn in school is censored and selective, and that working people are indeed the builders of our nation. More articles in future, please, about more great unknowns...
Great article about a very brave African American. I wish more white Americans had his courage and insight. I'm not holding my breath.