Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

ming themselves and preparing to take over the rail yards
in Oakland and on the East Coast.
Randolph was upset, for he had never really intended
to lead a strike. He had not prepared for one, and
had told union associates that it was all a bluff. He felt certain
that the Federal Mediation Board would step in and
note, Afrikan nationalists in the North who were trying to
form unions independent from Euro-Amerikan unionism
were subjected to both legal and police disruption.) Under
the imperialist-ordered settlement porters' wages went up
by 305'0, while working hours were cut. Randolph was promoted
as the very successful leader of an all-Afrikan
union, who had gotten his members sizeable rewards in
wages and working conditions.
His greatest hour of fame lay still ahead - the
1941 March On Washington Movement, when for one
month Randolph was the most important Afrikan in the
U.S. This was the event that ensured him a place as a national
leader of Afrikans for the U.S. Empire. Instead of
Booker T. Washington, an avowed "socialist" labor
leader was now meeting and advising at the White House.
arrange a negotiated settlement - just as they did for the
Euro-Amerikan railroad Brotherhoods. As a precaution
Randolph had even had a White House meeting with President
Coolidge and told him of his secret hopes for a
Government-sponsored settlement. But as the strike
deadline neared, the Federal Government refused to intervene.
The imperialists were unwilling to publicly admit
that an Afrikan union could force a "national
emergency ."
As a desperate hope, Randolph then went begging
to A.F.L. President William Green. In a last-minute
meeting he implored Green for A.F.L. support of the
porters' strike, getting the settler railroads Brotherhoods
to close down the trains. Green told him that: "The public
isn't ready to accept a strike by Negroes." He told Randolph
to give up and call off the strike. Randolph sadly
obeyed. On the eve of the first coast-to-coast strike of
Afrikan railroad workers the word went out to go back to
work, to offer no resistance to the companies.
Disillusioned and confused, the Afrikan porters
left the union by the thousands. Two-thirds of the union's
7,000 members quit in the next few months. Randolph's
only plan was for them to wait and wait until Euro-
Amerikans decided to finally approve of them. Many
porters were fired by the triumphant company, knowing
that Randolph had left them defenseless. Dues slowed to a
trickle, and even the Messenger stopped appearing. A.
Philip Randolph had won acceptance from the A.F.L.
leadership but the workers who had followed him paid the
bill. And he had succeeded in defusing a potentially explosive
struggle of Afrikan workers.
Randolph's vindication came with the New Deal,
with the entry into State power of liberal Democratic Party
politicians who understood him and why he was so useful.
In 1937 the National Labor Relations Board ordered the
Pullman Company to recognize the Brotherhood and give
in to its main demands (during this same period, we should
So a new, militant nationalism and a new, protestoriented
integrationism engaged in ideological struggle for
leadership of the Afrikan masses. It was not, however, a
symmetrical struggle or an equal one (struggle rarely is).
The insurgent nationalism had the far greater share of
popular support, particularly from the laboring masses. It
was also true that Afrikan revolutionaries of that time had
not yet developed successful strategies for liberation. The
Civil Rights integrationists, however slim their own forces,
had the powerful resources of the oppressor nation backing
their play. The full range of forces, from the U.S.
Department of Justice and the police to the foundations,
the social-democrats and the settler trade unions, all worked
in their various ways to promote the hegemony of a
modernized, neo-colonial leadership allied to the U.S. Empire.
'Postponed
Strike - set for
FRIDAY, JUNE 8th
12 O'clock Noon
Has been Postponed this
action taken upon advice of
Wm. GREEN-PRESIDENT
of the American Federation
of Labor.
Who promises immediate
Co-operation.
BENNIE SMITH
&Id Organhr R S. C. P.
By Order of Strike Committee
A PHILIP RANDOLPH lad H. P. WEBSTER
BSCP strike cancellation flyer, Detroit, June 8, 1928.
118 Original in Chicago Historical Society.