Asa Philip Randolph was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 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 Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning 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 Executive Orders 9980 and 9981 in 1948, promoting fair employment and anti-discrimination policies in federal government hiring, and ending racial segregation in the armed services.
Randolph in 1963
Leaders of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C.
Leaders of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963.
Randolph receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 from President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, commonly referred to as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railway workers across Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
A Pullman Porter, photographed in Chicago in 1943
A Pullman Porter making the bed of an upper berth, 1942