A Philip Randolph, photographed on the day of the March on Washington, 1963

Topics on the Page

• Biography and Overview

• Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 

• March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 

• League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation 

Biography and Overview

Click here for a 2 minute biographical video on A. Philip Randolph

A. Philip Randolph was a black civil rights and labor movement leader, a founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and a key figure in the civil rights movement.

Randolph believed that the key to black progress rested in the black working class and the ability to organize and protest.

Throughout most of his life, Randolph worked to aid the black working class and fought to end discrimination in the workplace. A member of the Socialist Party, Randolph made several unsuccessful attempts to be elected to political office in New York.

Click here for in depth biography of A Phillip Randolph's life.

  Click here for an oral history interview with A. Philip Randolph from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP)

Randolph saw the need for the organization of black workers, and in 1925 he established the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP).

• Many affiliates of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) barred blacks from affiliation and membership, so Randolph took his union into the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), a federation of unions that supported African-American membership.

• The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was the first African American union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S. corporation

Sleeping car porter employed by the Pullman Company at Union Station in Chicago, Illinois (January 1943) 

For a brief documentary on A. Philip Randolph and the Pullman Porters, click here

The Evolution and History of the Union from the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum.

After the successful negotiation of the porters contract, in 1938, Randolph put pressure on President Franklin Roosevelt to end discrimination in federal government employment.

After threatening to organize a March on Washington in June, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on 25th June, 1941, barring discrimination in defense industries and federal bureaus (the Fair Employment Act).

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The Call to Negro America to March on Washington, 1941

Listen to A. Philip Randolphs speech during The Great March on Washington.

League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation

• He helped organize the League of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation. 
• Served as chairman of the organization. 

• Group that financially and legally supported  soldiers of all races who protest military segregation through the weapon of civil disobedience. 

  These actions contributed to the 1948 executive order issued by Truman which banned racial segregation in the military.  

For more information, click here.  

 For an interactive game about Civil Rights that creates a timeline for key events, click here.