Photo courtesy of the A. Philip Randolph Institute

Asa Philip Randolph

Born: April 15, 1889
Died: May 16, 1979

In his long career of leadership, visionary African-American labor leader Asa Philip Randolph was the voice of the black working class in a rapidly changing America. The son of a minister, Randolph began to stand out from his peers early in life. He graduated in 1907 at the top of his class from the Cookman Institute in Jacksonville, Fla., now Bethune-Cookman College. His valedictory speech was on the importance of racial pride.

Randolph moved to Harlem in New York City in 1911. Here, he found an abundance of job opportunities, but realized he needed more education to prosper in New York's competitive atmosphere. While attending the City College of New York, Randolph met Chandler Owen with whom he started an employment agency in his first effort to unite black workers. In 1917, the two created The Messenger; a monthly magazine that Randolph said would be "the first voice of radical, revolutionary, economic and political action among Negroes in America."

Randolph continued to set his sights on organizing African-American workers. In June 1925, Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, an independent union of porters and maids. His goal was to work with the Pullman Company to secure decent wages and working conditions for the group.

After a grueling 12-year struggle with the Pullman Company, which was then the most powerful business in the country, Randolph lead the Brotherhood to finally obtain a railroad contract with the Pullman Company in 1937. This was the first labor contract for a black union.

Randolph, often hailed as the dean of black leadership, continued to fight for African-American rights until the late 1960s. In 1963, he was a key coordinator of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Renowned New York Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Murray Kempton said, "It is hard to make anyone believe that A. Philip Randolph must be the greatest man who has lived in the U.S. this century. But it is harder yet to make anyone who has ever known him believe anything else."