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