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A UAW Black History Month Salute:A Union Man Who Moved a NationThe Movement Led by A. Philip Randolph"Salvation for a race, nation
or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won.
Justice is never given; it is exacted." The history of our nation's outstanding African- Americans is a history of triumphs against daunting odds. This is especially true in America's workplaces. Long after the brutal system of slavery ended in 1865, black citizens were still denied the right to vote in many states. For another century, they were denied jobs in most factories, offices and universities -- except among the cleaning or service staff, or in foundries, where work was dirty and dangerous. "A white-jacketed Negro
waiter balances a loaded silver platter as a speeding railroad diner
pitches to and fro, over seemingly endless miles of steel rail. In the
kitchen, a black chef stoops over a blistering hot iron stove as he places
a fresh turkey into the oven for dinner. And back in first class, the
ubiquitous Pullman porter flashes a broad smile as he settles a passenger
into her room." In the days before cars, garages and highways defined American life, Americans travelled by train. Making each trip comfortable were crews of African-American workers. When the Pullman Sleeping Car Company began leasing rail cars to the railroads in 1867, it had hired newly freed slaves to work on them. For nearly a century, it continued hiring almost exclusively African-Americans. While patrons dined and slept in the Pullman cars, the waiters and porters were often working double shifts without being allowed to even sit down. "We... are not interested in
Negroes getting more work, Negroes have too much work already. What we
want Negroes to get is less work and more wages. . ." |
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By 1926, 20,224 African-Americans were working as Pullman
and train porters. But few passengers For working 400 hours a month, or 11,000 miles, Pullman train porters were paid just $66. To get by, they needed tips. And to get those tips, they hauled luggage, prepared sleeping berths, ironed suits and polished the wood and brass of the elegant railroad sleeping cars. They baby-sat children, delivered trays of food, shined shoes, and tended the sick. They also had to endure racial slurs and insults -- with a smile. If a passenger complained, you could get fired. "With a union, black people
can approach their employers as proud and upright equals, not as trembling
and bowing slaves. Indeed, a solid union contract is, in a very real
sense, another Emancipation Proclamation." The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car PortersWhat could workers do? Although there were no unions run by blacks in those days and Pullman was one of the most powerful and viciously anti-union companies around, they organized. They needed, as a leader, someone George Pullman couldn't fire. So the porters turned to a man they admired as a powerful speaker, writer and fighter for social justice and the rights of African Americans: A Philip Randolph. "The very nature of a
struggle on the part of labor and minorities . . . renders it inevitable
that labor and minorities join the camp of and stand by and for the forces
of democracy." Asa Philip Randolph was the son of an African Methodist Episocopalian (AME) minister, whose parishioners were poor domestic servants and unskilled laborers. Although Randolph graduated at the top of his class at the
first high school for African Americans in Florida, he didn't have the
opportunity to go to college. Instead, Randolph did menial work before
"It is hard to make anyone
who has never met him believe that A. Philip Randolph must be the greatest
man who has lived in the U.S. in this century. But it is harder yet to
make anyone who has ever known him believe anything else." In New York's Harlem, Mr. Randolph reached thousands of black workers and citizens through his newspaper, The Messenger, and later the Black Worker. During World War I, the Attorney General called him "one of the most dangerous Negroes in America." Together with the Pullman workers, he founded The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in August, 1925. But George Pullman struck back with a spy system, threats and firings. He bankrolled attacks on the fledgling union by African- American newspapers, ministers and politicians. His message: The Brotherhood were "reds" and "Communists" who dared attack Pullman, the "benefactor of the Negro race." |
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For 12 long years, Randolph and the Brotherhood struggled to get Pullman to the bargaining table. Through those difficult years they won the support of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), churches, African-American newspapers, the NAACP and other groups. The Brotherhood came to represent the African American's claim to dignity, respect and a decent livelihood. "The labor movement has been
the home of the working man, and traditionally, it has been the only haven
for the dispossessed." In the 1930s the union movement was reborn, as hundreds of thousands of industrial workers flocked into new unions like the UAW and the Steel Workers. The average, unskilled worker finally had an organized voice. In response to this new movement, President Roosevelt signed a New Deal law that guaranteed workers the legal right to organize and get companies to negotiate. In 1935, Randolph and the Brotherhood got the Pullman Company to sit down at the bargaining table. That year they also became the first black union afiliated with the AFL. It took another two years for the Sleeping Car Porters to get a Union contract from Pullman. But it was the first contract any black union had won; and the winds of freedom swept into the Pullman trains. Marching for the American Dream "This civil rights
revolution is not confined to the Negro, nor is it confined to civil
rights, for our white allies know they cannot be free while we are not.
And we know we have no future in a society in which six million black and
white people are unemployed and millions live in poverty." Randolph didn't stop at the bargaining table. Like the UAW, he believed that all of society should enjoy the Union goals of justice for working families. In 1940, Randolph convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sign an executive order that called for fair employment in war industries. For the first time, auto industry managers, for example, had to hire African- Americans into the plants and offices being converted to wartime production. In 1948, Randolph lobbied successfully for another executive order, banning discrimination in the armed forces and federal employment. But in other workplaces, managers could still refuse to hire or promote women, blacks, religious minorities, etc. Southern states still enforced a strict system of racial separation that even made blacks and whites use different drinking fountains. "After a year of Birmingham
demonstrations. . . it became clear to [Randolph] that unless there was a
March on Washington that summer there might be riots all over the United
States. There had to be a civil rights bill. There had to be a voters'
rights bill . . . And Randolph was the only civil rights leader at that
point who could in fact get all the rest of them to come into the same
room."
In the 1960s, Randolph marched hand in hand with Martin Luther King, Jr. and UAW President Walter Reuther, leading hundreds of thousands of people determined to turn civil rights into law. Randolph had first planned and organized a 1957 prayer pilgrimage, and the 1958 and 1959 marches for school integration. And he was the man who called for and planned the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I have a Dream" speech. Out of this movement was born the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Although the struggle for justice continues, the old "Jim Crow" laws and company policies of racial separation and terror are gone. The A. Philip Randolph Institute The Union movement and the A. Philip Randolph Institute,founded in 1965, continue to honor Randolph's legacy. And together with activists across America, they continue to strive for Randolph's goals of equality and economic justice. |
knew the harsh conditions and low pay that lurked
behind their smiling faces and deferent manners. 
taking off for New York in 1911.