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At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America’s multifaceted radical tradition, a leading spokesman for Black America, and a potent symbol of trade unionism and civil rights agitation for nearly half a century. But with the dissolution of the BSCP in the 1970s, the assaults waged against organized labor in the 1980s, and the overall silencing of labor history in U.S. popular discourse, he has been largely forgotten among large segments of the general public before whom he once loomed …

Through the media attention on this anniversary, it has been gratifying to once again see the cover of Life magazine (September 6, 1963) with Randolph and Rustin standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. At the time of the March, most Americans had viewed these two men as the real stars of the occasion. The 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom was actually the realization of their long-time “dream” to have a dramatic and peaceful demonstration that emphasized the need of all black Americans for economic opportunities and jobs, as well as the more elusive ideal of freedom.

A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was one of the most effective black trade unionists in America. Once known as "the most dangerous black man in America," he was a radical journalist, a labor leader, and a pioneer of civil rights strategies. His protegé Bayard Rustin noted that, "With the exception of W.E.B. Du Bois, he was probably the greatest civil rights leader of the twentieth century until Martin Luther King." Scholarship has traditionally portrayed Randolph as an atheist and anti-religious, his connections to African American religion either ignored or misrepresented. Taylor places Randolph within …

Martin (history, Univ. of California) and Sullivan (W.E.B. DuBois Inst., Harvard) have compiled a massive encyclopedia featuring 730 entries on civil rights in America. Among the 332 contributors are such major scholars as Gerald Early, Frances Fox Pliven, Robin Kelley, and Kermit Hall, as well as a number of less well-known students of this topic. The editors have conceived their project broadly by transcending the traditional focus on African Americans. ~ Library Journal

Martin (history, Univ. of California) and Sullivan (W.E.B. DuBois Inst., Harvard) have compiled a massive encyclopedia featuring 730 entries on civil rights in America. Among the 332 contributors are such major scholars as Gerald Early, Frances Fox Pliven, Robin Kelley, and Kermit Hall, as well as a number of less well-known students of this topic. The editors have conceived their project broadly by transcending the traditional focus on African Americans. ~ Library Journal