A. Philip Randolph would become a major asset to the successes of the civil rights movement

due to his revolutionary organizing skills and deep interest for labor rights.

Here's how he used his passion to fight for us all.

This is Two Minute Black History, what you didn't learn in school.

A. Philip Randolph would begin his interest in collective politics by studying the socialist

perspective.

He believed that taking down capitalism was the only true way to achieve racial equality.

This brought his attention to union organizing.

Randolph would go on to be the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Portards.

They organized around increasing wages and benefits for black quarters on the Pullman

cars around the country.

Randolph was one of the main brokers of the March on Washington movement of 1941 that

pushed for the government to integrate the defense industry out of World War II.

The threat of 100,000 black people marching on Washington forced Franklin Delano Roosevelt

to sign the Fair Employment Practices Commission making integration a reality.

Years later, Randolph would find himself in the position yet again to March on Washington.

Randolph supported the vision of the young pastor Martin Luther King Jr. who wished to

march on Washington in 1963.

A. Philip Randolph would become the lead planner of that march.

Our superpower in the fight for liberation is collective action.

A. Philip Randolph saw the divide in our civil and labor rights and worked to bring black

people together to demand precisely what we need from the system.

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