sakaisettlersocr
sakaisettlersocr
sakaisettlersocr
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Midd &Ff- IT YW r*0 A INSTEAD<br />
THUMe ff ANY- THE ONLY THl- MR. MIT-<br />
CHELL WILL R U V 1 14 CARD INTHE<br />
mOTUERU000 OF SLEEPING CAa FMTLR!?4<br />
William Green. Morehouse College Professor Brailsford<br />
Brazeal admitted in his laudatory 1946 book on the<br />
Porter's Union: "Randolph, although a socialist, had by<br />
this time convinced Green that pullman porters were anxious<br />
to demonstrate that the Negro would help to further<br />
the program of American workers through conventional<br />
channels. Randolph had condemned the Communists and<br />
their tactics in the Messenger.. .AN this niust have reaffirmed<br />
Green's convictions that here were the man and the<br />
organization that could serve as an instrument for rallying<br />
Negro workers under the hegemony of the Federation. "<br />
(49)<br />
Bayard Rustin, Randolph's leading disciple, has<br />
said of him: "...he realized that separatism, whether<br />
espoused by Marcus Garvey or latter day nationalists, is<br />
grounded in fantasy and myth despite its emotional appeal<br />
to an oppressed people ... Black people, he realized, could<br />
never advanced without the good feelings and assistance of<br />
many whites." (50)<br />
And now we can see the answer to the question<br />
that Dr. King raised.<br />
There was only one A. Philip Randolph because<br />
U.S. imperialism only wanted one. Randolph was pushed<br />
forward and made a big leader by his Euro-Amerikan mentors.<br />
When we look at his magazine, the Messenger, during<br />
the years when it was fighting Garveyism, we see in issue<br />
after issue large "solidarity" advertisement; paid for by<br />
the Euro-Amerikan radicals who ran the International<br />
Ladies' Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated<br />
Clothing Workers Union. Social-democratic settler labor<br />
was indirectly subsidizing Randolph to attack nationalism<br />
from within the Afrikan Nation - to be their agent and do<br />
what they from the outside could not. His whole career<br />
was similarly aided and arranged. Imperialism needed its<br />
own militant-sounding Afrikan leaders.<br />
A. Philip Randolph's actual record as President of<br />
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is instructive. He<br />
BSCP cartoon, Messenger (0ct.-Nov., 1925), 35 1.<br />
and Chandler Owen were approached by a committee of<br />
porters, who were looking for an Afrikan intellectual who<br />
could help them to organize a union. The porters' previous<br />
attempts had been clumsy. Several efforts had been smashed<br />
by the company in a series of firings. Randolph took up<br />
the opportunity, and in 1925 the union was formed. The<br />
Messenger became the official journal of the Brotherhood.<br />
In terms of leading labor struggles, Randolph was<br />
a peculiar "success." After years of difficult building, the<br />
new 7,000 member union had called for a coast-to-coast<br />
Pullman strike in 1928. A mood of tense anticipation was<br />
prevalent among the porters. Knowing that the settler train<br />
crews wouldn't honor their strike and would try to roll the<br />
117 trains anyway, large groups of Afrikan workers began ar-