A. Philip Randolph

Asa Philip Randolph was born in Florida, the son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister, and moved to Harlem as a young man, where he studied, wrote for socialist publications and became known as a powerful public speaker on racial and economic justice. In 1925 porters on the Pullman Company's sleeping cars, almost all Black men working long hours for low pay and tips, asked him to lead a union, partly because as an outsider with no job at the company he could not be fired by it.

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters fought a twelve-year battle for recognition against a company that fired and blacklisted organisers, finally winning a contract in 1937, the first agreement between a major American corporation and a union led by Black workers. Randolph used the base this gave him to press for broader civil rights, threatening a mass march on Washington in 1941 that persuaded President Roosevelt to ban racial discrimination in defence industries, and threatening another in 1948 that helped push President Truman to desegregate the armed forces.

He went on to organise the 1963 March on Washington, at which Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, serving as its lead organiser alongside Bayard Rustin, whom he had mentored for years and defended against attacks over Rustin's sexuality and past Communist ties.

He continued campaigning for Black workers' economic rights until his death in 1979, arguing that civil rights without economic power would remain incomplete.