A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES: Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections General Editors: John H. Bracey, Jr. and August Meier THE PAPERS OF A. PHILIP RANDOLPH Edited by John H. Bracey, Jr. and August Meier Project Coordinator Randolph Boehm Guide compiled by David H. Werning A microfilm project of UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA An Imprint of CIS 4520 East-West HighwayBethesda, MD 20814-3389 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Randolph, A. Philip (Asa Philip), 1889- The papers of A. Philip Randolph [microform] / edited by August Meier and John Bracey. microfilm reels. - (Black studies research sources) Accompanied by printed reel guide compiled by David H. Werning. ISBN 1-55655-024-3 1. Randolph, A. Philip (Asa Philip), 1889- -Archives. 2. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters-History-Sources. 3. Afro- Americans-Civil rights~History~20th century-Sources. 4. Civil rights movements-United States~History~20th century-Sources. 5. Afro-Americans-History-1877-1964~Sources. I. Werning, David H., 1963- . II. University Publications of America (Firm) III. Title. IV. Series. [E185.97.R27] 323'.092~dc20 91-11920 CIP Copyrighte 1990 by A. Philip Randolph Institute. All rights reserved. ISBN 1-55655-024-3. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction v Scope and Content Note vii Note on Sources xii Editorial Note xii Initialisms xiii Reel Index Reell Family Papers 1 General Correspondence 1 Reel 2 General Correspondence cont 4 ReelS General Correspondence cont 7 Subject File 8 Reels 4-27 Subject File cont 9 Reels 28-32 Speeches and Writings File 43 Reel 33 Biographical File 52 Reel 34-35 Miscellany File 54 Correspondent Index 57 Subject Index 67 INTRODUCTION A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979) was one of the leading black protest leaders of the twentieth century. He was best known as the editor of the Messenger (a radical Socialist journal), as organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and as the leader of the 1941 and 1963 Marches on Washington. Raised in Jacksonville, Florida, as the son of an American Methodist Episcopalian minister and a deeply religious mother, he attended the Cookman Institute, and in 1911 went to New York City to pursue studies at City College. In New York he held a number of menial jobs, married Lucille Green in 1914, and became immersed in a Socialist and radical milieu. He became well known as one of Harlem's best street corner orators. With Chandler Owen he founded the Messenger in 1917, a magazine that during its early years criticized the established black leadership, and advocated socialism and the organizing of the working masses. During World War I, Randolph and Owen were arrested and held briefly, and their journal was temporarily suppressed for opposing the war effort. Because of the reputation that Randolph had established, several porters asked him, in 1925, to lead the organizing of a union of sleeping car porters. Following a decade of struggle with the Pullman Company, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) finally achieved recognition as the collective bargaining agent in 1935; two years later the Brotherhood signed its first contract. With the BSCP as his base, Randolph functioned as an articulate spokesman for black aspirations. He fought for the legal equality of blacks as a whole and for the economic rights of black workers. During the late 1930s he served as the president of the broad popular front coalition: the National Negro Congress. The 1941 March on Washington Movement (MOWM), which resulted in the formation of the wartime Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), served to solidify his role as a national protest leader. Although the march was never held, the threat of this militant strategy, backed in addition by the leaders of other black organizations, forced Roosevelt to issue Executive Order #8802, and identified Randolph as the leading advocate of direct action tactics before the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the mid-1950s. Thus Randolph received considerable attention in 1948 when he threatened to use civil disobedience to eliminate segregation in the armed services. From the mid-1930s on, Randolph persistently had raised the question of racist practices within the ranks of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). He continued to do so after the merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Committee on Industrial Organization (CIO) in 1955, when he served as one of the vice-presidents of the combined organizations. Randolph also was a founder and president of the Negro American Labor Council (NALC), an organization of black trade unionists that was created in 1959 to broaden the struggle against racism in the House of Labor. Randolph's final triumph was the 1963 March on Washington. During the 1950s, working with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Randolph had been a significant force in previous demonstrations held in the nation's capital: the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage and the 1958-59 Youth Marches for Integrated Schools. Coming at the peak of the use of nonviolent direct action in the 1960s, the 1963 March for "Jobs and Freedom" epitomized Randolph's strategy of creating broad-based coalitions and combining them with mass action, and paved the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. The Papers of A. Philip Randolph at the Library of Congress document several important aspects of Randolph's career. They are particularly strong for the period since the Second World War. They illuminate Randolph's role in the Socialist party and in creating coalitions with other groups on behalf of labor, civil rights, and civil liberties. The collection also supplies important documentation for subjects such as Randolph's role both in combatting Communist influence in the black community and in opposing on principle the red-baiting of the American left. Finally, the collection is an important source for Randolph's efforts in working to eliminate racial discrimination in the trade union movement. Other collections in the Black Studies Research Sources series that also bear on Randolph's life and work are the Papers of Bayard Rustin, his close confidant over a period of three decades; the Papers of the National Negro Congress; Federal Surveillance of Afro-Americans (1917-1925); and the Records of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. John H. Bracey, Jr. and August Meier General Editors VI ¡COPE mB CQMTEMT MOTl The A. Philip Randolph Collection consists of the following series: Family Papers, 1942- 1963; General Correspondence, 1925-1978; Subject Files, 1909-1978; Speeches and Writings File, 1941-1978; Biographical File, 1945-1979; and Miscellany, 1920-1979. Family Papers This series consists largely of notes, birthday cards, etc. between Randolph and his wife Lucille and also condolences sent to Randolph upon Lucille's death on April 12,1963. Although scattered and often brief, the letters between A. Philip and Lucille evidence great devotion and affection. General Correspondence, 1926-1978 The General Correspondence series touches on a wide range of Randolph's lifetime activities, including early efforts to organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in the mid and late 1920s; Randolph's feud with Robert L. Vann, publisher of the Pittsburgh Courier, over the integrity of including the Chicago Negro Labor Conference and New Deal labor legislation; Randolph's early acquaintance with Christian pacifist philosophy at Kings Mountain Christian Labor Retreat; Communist activity within the BSCP in the 1930s; World War ll-era labor relations (especially efforts to have blacks represented on the War Manpower Commission) and the campaign for the FEPG (as well as for a permanent FEPC after the war); the 1941 March on Washington movement; the development of the postwar civil rights coalition (including the black church, civil rights organizations, white Christian and Jewish liberals, and the remnant of the Socialist party); developments in the south with regard to voting rights of African-Americans after the demise of the white primary; efforts to resuscitate the Socialist party in the late 1940s and 1950s; enthusiasm for anticolonial movements in Africa in the 1950s; White House Conferences on Civil Rights with American presidents; the 1963 March on Washington; Great Society legislation; the development of the Negro American Labor Conference in the 1960s and of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and more. Key correspondents in the General Correspondence series include several of Randolph's chief lieutenants within the BSCP, notably Roy Lancaster, Bennie Smith, Ashley Totten, Milton P. Webster, and C. L. Dellums. Many prominent American political figures, including every American president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter, appear in the series. A partial list includes Norman Thomas, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert H. Humphrey, Francis Cardinal Spellman, Oswald Garrison Villard, Jacob J. Javits, Clarence Senior, Harry Laidler, Drew Pearson, Nelson Rockefeller, Sargent Shriver, Wart W Rostow, John V. Lindsey, and many others. An even larger number of prominent black civil rights leaders are represented in the series, including Chandler B. Owen, George E. Haynes, Rep. Oscar DePriest, Pauli Murray, Walter F. White, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, Ralph Bunche, Ella J. Baker, Martin Luther King, Whitney Young, Jackie Robinson, Clarence Mitchell, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Ralph D. Abernathy, James Baldwin, James Farmer, Coretta Scott King, Lillian Speight, and Stokeley Carmichael. A number of prominent white intellectuals and civil rights activists are represented in the series, including, John Haynes Holmes, Channing H. Tobias, Charles Wesley Burton, Morris Milgram, A. J. Muste, Daniel Bell, Broadus Mitchell, Alfred Baker Lewis, Aubrey Williams, James T. Farrell, Stanley D. Levinson, and Lillian Smith. VII A number of prominent white intellectuals and civil rights activists are represented in the series, including John Haynes Holmes, Channing H. Tobias, Charles Wesley Burton, Morris Milgram, A.