A. PHILLIP RANDOLPH
In 1911 Randolph moved to Harlem in hope of becoming an actor. Randolph's parents objected, so while at the City College of New York, he switched his studies to politics and economics. While at city college, he met his wife, Lucille Green. Green was a teacher who had quit that career and opened a lucrative beauty salon when her first husband died. Randolph also met Chandler Owen about this time, a sociology and political science student at Columbia University. Together they formed the radical Harlem magazine, The Messenger
in 1927. in 1925, Randolph organized The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first serious effort to form a labor union for the employees of the pullman company, which was a major employer of Blacks. After year of bitter struggle, the pullman company finally began to negotiate with the brotherhood in 1935, and agreed to a contract with them in 1937. The brotherhood was associated with the American Federation of Labor.
Randolph emerged as one of the most visible spokespersons for Black Americans and civil rights. In 1941 he, Bayard Rustin, and A.J. Muste proposed a march on washington to protest racial discrimination in the armed forces. The march was canceled after president F.D. Roosevelt issued the fair employment act. Many militants felt betrayed by the cancellation because Roosevelts pronouncement only pertained to defense industries and not the armed forces themselves.
In 1947, Randolph formed The Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service, later renamed The League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. President Harry S. Truman abolished racial segregation in the armed forces through executive order 9981 on July 26, 1948. Randoph was also notable in his fight against restrictions on immigration. Randloph also helped Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. to organized the march on washington for jobs and freedom on August 28, 1963. On september 14, 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson presented Randolph with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.