Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is an American coalition of more than 240 national civil and human rights organizations and acts as an umbrella group for American civil and human rights. Founded as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) in 1950 by civil rights activists Arnold Aronson, A. Philip Randolph, and Roy Wilkins, the coalition has focused on issues ranging from educational equity to justice reform to voting rights.
Maya Wiley (pictured in 2015) became the coalition's president and chief executive officer in 2022.
Image: A. Philip Randolph 1963 NYWTS
Image: Roy Wilkins at the White House, 30 April, 1968
Image: Bayard Rustin Aug 1963 Library Of Congress crop
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.