The organizer of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech was also the leader of the first successful black labor union. For A. Philip Randolph, labor and civil rights were one and the same.

A. Philip Randolph, the influential twentieth-century labor and civil rights leader, would no doubt have mixed feelings about the state of labor in the United States today. On the one hand, union density has declined precipitously over the last half-century, from roughly one-third to one-tenth of all workers. On the other hand, there’s been an upsurge of union organizing in recent years, particularly among black and brown workers.

As the leader of the first successful black labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Randolph was committed to organizing black workers, particularly at a time when many unions excluded African Americans.

Randolph never gave up his socialist belief that unions and their members, regardless of race, are key to the struggle to redistribute society’s wealth, provide good jobs for all, and create a more democratic society. And he persisted in his belief that strategic mass action by a coalition of liberal, progressive, and radical forces is central to making America live up to its ideals.

The millions of people who benefit today from his contributions to the civil rights and labor movements should know his name.

Peter Dreier