Viewing page 269 of 372

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[5 images]]

EXCERPTS FROM A. PHILIP RANDOLPH SPEECHES

Founding Conference of The Negro Labor Committee 
Renaissance Ballroom, New York City
July 20, 1935

"There can be no solidarity if one is considered a Black worker and another a white worker. He should be considered just a worker. We intend to abolish discrimination and segregation. Our fight is not against the A.F. of L. As a matter of fact, we are concerned about strengthening and building the AFL, making it a more powerful organization to fight for the interest of all labor. The purpose and aim of this organization is to bring this about."

"We have reached a period where it is practically impossible for modern capitalism to function in meeting the needs and conditions that are essential to its own existance and perpetuity."

"The passing of slavery did not result in the complete emancipation of the Negro worker. As a matter of fact, the Civil War was not a complete revolution. It did not bring to the workers universal suffrage, the right to participation in the public school system in the democratic parliamentary structure. More than any other group in America, Negroes need to develop economic strength and organize with white workers to fight and abolish all forms that attack their rights as workers."

Founding convention of The Negro American Labor Council 
Detroit, Michigan - 1960

"The Negro American Labor Council will seek Negro trade unionists in every craft, class and industry to join it's ranks. It will be pro-Negro but not anti-white. It will have no color bar. It will be non-partisan but not non-political. It will be anti-Fascist, anti-racist and anti-colonialist. It will support pro-labor and pro-civil rights legislation, but not the fortunes of the Democratic or Republican parties. Recognizing that only within the framework of a democratic society can civil rights and labor's rights movement exist, the NALC will unequivocally support and defend democracy and freedom at home and abroad."

Great March on Washington, 1963

"We are not a pressure group; we are not an organization or a group of organizations; we are not a mob. We are the advance guard of a massive moral revolution for jobs and freedom. The revolution reverberates throughout the land, touching every village where Black men are segregated, oppressed and exploited."

80th Birthday Dinner, 1969

"Salvation for the Negro masses must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given, it is exacted. But in our struggle we must draw from strength upon something that far transcends the boundaries of race. We must draw upon the human potential for kindness and decency. And we must have faith that this society divided by race and by class, and subject to profound social pressures, can one day become a nation of equals and banish white racism and black racism and anti-semitism to the limbo of oblivion from which they shall never emerge."

"The cause has been the liberation of the Negro in America. I have seen fit in this endeavor to try to establish an alliance between the Negro and the American trade union movement. I have been guided by the belief that Negros are a working people, and that because of their history on American soil - a history of suffering and tragedy, but also of struggle, endurance, dignity, and ultimately a history of human triumph - that because of this history they have been a dispossessed people who have often had to migrate thousands of miles in search of the means of subsistence. The labor movement has been the home of the working man, and traditionally, it has been the only haven for the dispossessed. And, therefore, I have tried to build an alliance between the Negro and the American Labor Movement."

"My philosophy was the result of our concept of effective liberation of the working people. We never separated the liberation of the white working man from the liberation of the black working man.... The unity of these forces would bring about the power rally to achieve basic social change."

267