A. Philip Randolph was a trade unionist and civil rights activist who was regarded by many younger civil rights activists as the spiritual father of the civil rights movement. He was born on April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida but moved to the Harlem in New York in 1911. In 1925, he was the founding president of the nation’s first black labor union to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). At that time, half of the affiliates of the AFL barred African Americans from membership. Despite this, his union was admitted. In 1938, Randolph moved his union from the AFL to the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in protest against the AFL’s failure to fight discrimination in its ranks. When the AFL merged with the CIO in 1955, Randolph was made a vice president and member of the executive council of the combined organization (AFL-CIO). Randolph spent his life fighting for equal rights for black workers. In the 1930s and 1940s, his organizing efforts helped end both racial discrimination in defense industries and segregation in the United States armed forces. In 1963, he worked with fellow activist Bayard Rustin to spearhead the March on Washington held on August 28 for jobs and freedom. It was at this event that 250,000 people heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This march help paved the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act the following year. Randolph was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 by Lyndon B. Johnson for his career of activism. Randolph passed away on May 16, 1979, at the age of 90.
