Rights leader who organized the union. Hosted by the association for the study of African American life and history, this event is about two hours. Thank you, everybody, for coming here. My name is alan spiers, im the npca has served as leading voice of the American People on behalf of their National Parks since we were founded in 1919. Its our mission to protect and enhance americas parks for current and future generations. We are a very proud partner of the association. They are hosting their 99 conference. I look forward to celebrating their centennial next european we have a couple of objectives today. About two hours to chat with you about some important topics. Adding a unit to the National Park service on Chicagos Southside would commemorate the industrialist capitalist. Merchants of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. Connected topics. , if peopleet started could make sure if you have a cell phone, please place it on silent or vibrate or turn it off so we dont have birds chirping and portions of mozart symphony and trekking interrupting the presentations. Traveled on sleeping cars in the decade prior to the civil war. He found them to be mostly crammed and uncomfortable. Businessouple of other ventures, he decided he would launch himself into the industry of creating these luxurious sleeping cars that could accommodate high and travelers highend travelers. He was successful from the start just before the american civil war. One of the things that happened to expedite the fame and fortune of the company was linked to the assassination of president abraham lincoln. Sentlincolns body was back to springfield, illinois, the train that took lincolns body back to his hometown had a couple of pullman cars attached to it. The reporters would lament on the untimely death of the president and comment on the luxurious nature of those cars. They became something of an overnight sensation in that regard. The business got a boom from the tragedy of the assassination of the president. After the civil war, pullman did decide the best workforce for porters working on his luxury is sleeping cars would be formerly enslaved africanamericans. He felt these people would know how to work in close with white kind tell white clientele. He went on to be one of the largest employers of africanamericans in the united states. That led to the emergence of the brotherhood of sleeping car Philip Randolph as a leader of that union. We will get to the other aspects of pullmans industrial struggles, the union. We will have our panel of experts talk about that. I want to introduce the folks who will be sharing this information with you today. , dr. Ve dr. Cornelius bynum , sandra washington and lee aaron fully. To haveoing presentations from each of our panelists that will run 15 minutes or so. We will have some dialogue and discussion once panelists finished followup questions. You have questions, be prepared to ask them. We have the mike appearing front we have the microphone up here in front. I would like to turn it over to dr. Bynum. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. I will give you a brief background on myself. Its an important way of coming to understand my journey with randolph as a research topic. Im originally from louisville, kentucky and went to the university of virginia where i did my undergraduate work and graduate work. It was during those years 1921 when i came to an tiffany about history and my epiphany about history and my life. I took a civil rights history course and we were talking about black soldiers in the war, the second world war. It got me to thinking about my own personal narrative. I went home over winter break and began quizzing older relatives about the 1940s and the war and that sort of thing and came to find out that several of my relatives, including my father im not as old as you might think, but my father fought in the second world war. The important thing here is that my fathers cousin who also fought in the war was stationed in the pacific. He shared with me letters that my father had written from europe back home, had pictures of my father in uniform. This sparked my imagination about the narrative of the black experience in the 20th century. This began my journey toward graduate school, my doctorate in the book on ran off. And a book on randolph. Pursueuggle he leads to an agenda of Economic Justice and social justice. Bridges i dont want to say the divide between civil rights in a connect justice, but those things have not always been paired. The linkis central to that connects these kind of reform agendas. I began my dissertation with the title fighting for identity. That sounded like a great title to me. Not so great now. Ultimately, it became the basis for my book. Book, i tried to detail for key things that i think are central about randolph, and his role in the modern Civil Rights Movement. At struggle for social justice that really began to take shape in the first or second decade of the 20th century. Theeally runs to the end of 21st century. Some people might argue that it continues today in a different form or shape. Points i try to lay out with randolph in my study of his and 1955 aren 1915 fourfold. First, look at randolphs record to engineer a program of mass action. I mean mass action in the traditional form, where you gather a group of people to take some sort of concerted initiative to reform social processes, social circumstances that are oppressive to them. Thats how i imagine mass action, and the way i sort of write about it. Randolph really is at the forefront of this kind of social reform initiative. Beginning with his march on Washington Movements that ultimately led to the creation of the fair Employment Practices commission. And the first of ministry to effort administrative effort to implement a kind of equal Employment Policy from the government. This is a really important innovation for the Civil Rights Movement. He becomes the basis for other mass action campaigns. Certainly in 1960s. I dont want to suggest that randolph was the initiator of mass action. Certainly you had things like dont buy were you cant work campaigns the go all the way back to the 1920s in new york. Couriersurgh campaign can be viewed as a mass action strategy. These things existed. But what i do think randolph does in a really important way is take those kind of campaigns that, while very coherent in their articulation, are maybe less coherent in their application. And bring them together with a particular constituent group. One of the becomes innovations that i see randolph pushing forward when it comes to mass action campaigns. Linking a specific row graham with a specific group to lead it. With a specific group to lead it. For thaters called campaign, but not targeting a specific group to lead that campaign. Local organizations organizing economic boycotts of stores that dont hire black employees, but mobilizing ad on constituent group to lead that effort. Randolph, in my group, is innovative in that respect. Taking a concept mass action, and giving it a concrete form in ways that hadnt existed before. And laying the groundwork for what will come later in the 50s and the 60s. Secondly, i try to point out the randolph is astute in how we understands the way in which minority groups can maneuver effectively in the context of american politics. Before anyone else, randolph possessingthat when limited political leverage, the most effective place to apply that leverage is not the congress. Is not the legislative body with multiple politicians all with their own agenda, but rather, the executive branch. Where one person controls policy , whether he be the governor or the president. This becomes incredibly important as a vehicle for political and social change moving forward. Prior to randolphs march on Washington Movement, which led to his pressuring of roosevelt and the creation of the fa pc, most civil right groups, particularly the naacp look to congress for leadership. This was true with the antilynching campaign that was pursued through the 20s and 30s, they came to nothing. Where you could always have a block of stuff southern congressman that would stall any potential legislation that they deemed it an f to their racial to their anathema racial politics. Shifted the atmosphere towards democrats, when you had coalition of urban dwellers, people who moved to in the emerging Labor Movement, a more coherent Labor Movement, and minority groups like everton americans, democrats from the north are more responsive to the kind of little demands that someone like randolph began to make in the 1930s and 1940s. Understanding how limited political leverage could be best applied to greatest effect was a really important thing. Randolph understands before anyone else that in those circumstances, africanamericans had the best chance of affecting Public Policy by pressuring the executive branch, not the legislative branch. This becomes the model that we see Going Forward. King certainly has relationships with various members of congress. But the most celebrated political relationship that king has with the kennedy brothers. The executive branch, whether it is the president or the attorney general. This becomes an important model for Civil Rights Activism moving forward. From randolph in the 40s and onward. Randolph understands theer than anyone else that notion of social justice, of genuine social justice, isnt something tied necessarily to race or class. To the degree to which an individual is prepared to be a faithful citizen. To, forne is prepared instance, serve in the military, that person should be able to citizenfreely as a full , a full partner in a civil society. For randolph, civil rights should be based on the degree to which any person, man, woman, black, white, rather, is prepared to fulfill the duties of except the responsibility faithful, full citizenship. This becomes his conception of social justice. Just somewhat different then the socialist conception that really focuses on a labor theory of value, meaning that workers are the one that produced. And therefore are the one that should benefit from those products. If that makes any sense. But rather to say that citizenship is in bread by class or race, or gender. Atizenship is bread by willingness to fulfill the duties of citizenship. He has this great line where he says that since all men are people and have contributed to civilizations progress come all should benefit from that progress. Perception of civil rights, what constitutes general and genuine social justice. Its a more gala terrien humanism egalitarian humanism. Then it is a straightforward progressive identity around class, race, or gender. Something much more expansive. Lastly, randolph really has this important realization about the nature of what genuine civil rights looks like. Its not simply the right to vote or the right to serve in a desegregated military. Its also economic opportunity. The right to earn a living wage. The federal government should be in the business of securing not only civil rights, but economic opportunity. This was the full measure of what civil rights meant to randolph. Of course, this becomes part of what he would propose to Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s around his freedom budget, which was a 15 billion that sounds small in todays currency. But a 15 billion budget Industry Initiative to combat poverty. Thenis no really different kings Poor Peoples Movement in the late 1960s. In all of these ways, i argue that randolph really does in fact provide important ,hilosophical organizational and actionable leadership for the satellites Civil Rights Movement that is to come. We can talk more about the inlications of those ideas contemporary labor, race, and gender politics. I wont present randolph as a grand aggressive, because as mindy will point out, he is a man with flaws. [laughter] thanks. [laughter] im sorry. I didnt mean to put that onus on you. Intent here my is to say, as i teach my students, the great thing about history is that it shows us that even flawed people can do great things. Whether it be randolph, abraham lincoln, king himself. John kennedy. All these people have their flaws. In an odd way, they are linked around the way in which gender plays out socially, although lincoln, perhaps, not so much. Nonetheless, you can have flaws and still have tremendous impact on that only your immediate contemporary social circumstances, but also in the way people live in the future. That is some thing i try to teach my students. That is why someone like randolph, or king or others that we would talk about in memphis are so important. With that, i will probably pass the baton on to someone who can speak more coherently than i come up perhaps. Come back to some of these issues as we go forward with our discussion. This one. Take good afternoon. Mind being the critic. I do feel a little odd about that. I want to thank you for some of the things you said. I dont think i can tell you how i got to a. Philip randolph. When i was a graduate student at howard university, i actually met Gina Caruthers tucker, the International Secretary of the ladies auxiliary of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. I got to go to her house and get to know her for a few years before she passed. When she passed, i was even the responsibility to go and clean out her house. The house butng you left everything to the Leadership Conference for civil rights. I got to go clean out her house, and within that, i found her autobiography. I found boxes of auxiliary material. I found all of the papers from her first husband. Harlaners, who was a renaissance poet and activist, including unpublished manuscripts in all sorts of stuff. A very adjusting thing. When she died, she was 106 years old. And yet she still didnt slow down. When someone would try to walk her from place to place in her house, you do that old person shuffle, she said if you were going to go that slow, letting go by myself. That was always the way she approached life. Another quick story about her. I think people may appreciate it very. Had a fondness, a true liking, i would even say a love for a red dress. In a redd to be buried dress. She was very clear about that, despite the fact that members of her Presbyterian Church thought this may not be the appropriate thing for an elderly woman to be buried in. But she got her way, of course. [laughter] thats how i came to start working on the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, and thinking about some of the things that mrs. Tucker had talked about. Some of the things that i also knew from other research that i had done. One of the things that i had focused on i have a more formal paper that i may or may not read all of it. I probably wont in the interest of time. One of the things that led to on women of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, was to think about the sexism of which randolph is been accused. , what wehat sometimes now see in hindsight as sexism does not consider sexism in a prejudicial way at the time he was operating. Or at least most of the many years he was operating. Around forhe was many years after sexism was definitely part of the conversation. But in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, even into the 1950s and through the march on washington, the kind of sexism that he practiced , we believed in, i think stemmed from his view of manhood rights. Thethat is the view that notion of equality some of this goes to what cornelius was saying. The notion of equality was to measure how equal black men were to white men. How equal black women were to white women. This was not a competitive kind of thing. Kind of sex segregated equality, if you dont mind me calling at that. It is a different model of working on different issues. In approaching different issues. Of course, yes, it reinforced male privilege. Of course, it stunted womens potential for leadership. Particularly as leaders of men. It would have been something that was anathema to everyone in that time. But there is another part of that. And that is where it gets into what i call the politics of respectability. I have been calling this for quite a while. By that, i mean to have women thingsa role or to do that seem to defy societies accepted role of women. Undermined claims for civil rights. To go out ton had work, but white women did not, then what you are doing is creating a situation of inequality are black women visavis white women. This politics of perspective billet was not even i just talked about work, but thats not really where it is. With wearingto do a red dress or not, frankly. These are the kinds of things that i spent some time looking at. When we talk about sexism and civil rights and Political Representation in that time, i think that the other way to think about this in terms of randolph you said it too, i know you could call randolph all sorts of things based on his political philosophy. His social outlook, his goals, his beliefs. I like to think of him as an organizer. I think approaching him as somebody who was in some ways the consummate political organizer, this gives us a different view of the way he organized movements, the way he approached the participation of women in those movements. And basically, the way that women themselves viewed him and their role in the movement. What he thought was that despite all his many victories, and fewer spectacular failures we cant forget those. I dont think that is criticizing, its true. As he said, he failed to recognize women, and he refused to support efforts that would abolish sex to termination in the workplace. He did not support the equal sex is termination in the workplace. He did not support the equal rights movement. He did not support equal pay for women. Most people in the Labor Movement did not. These are some of the things you can criticize him for his political or policy stances. But there is another way of looking at what he did. Think about the way he displayed women in the movement. Deployed women in the movement. Women were either very traditionally mothers, teachers, or wives. Thats one less then the bbb did boys has. Those three roles with the most impo