Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance

President Roosevelt to issue executive orders that
prohibited discrimination in the defense industry.
In 1948 Randolph’s eloquent and tireless
campaign against the segregated military culmi-
nated in his pledge to become a martyr for the
cause. His willingness to suffer imprisonment
prompted a recalcitrant President Truman to de-
segregate the military. In 1963 Randolph was with
Martin Luther King, Jr., for the historic March on
Washington and witnessed firsthand the stirring “I
Have a Dream Speech” that the civil rights leader
delivered on the Mall in Washington, D.C., on
August 28. In his address to the marchers, Ran-
dolph made a stirring declaration: “We are the ad-
vance guard of a massive moral revolution for jobs
and freedom,” he exclaimed before insisting that
“[t]his revolution reverberates throughout the
land, touching every village where black men are
segregated, oppressed, and exploited” (NYT, 17
May 1979, A1).
A. Philip Randolph, the winner of the 1942 SP-
INGARNMEDAL, the most prestigious award given
by the NAACP, and the 1964 Presidential Medal of
Freedom, passed away in his Manhattan home on
May 16, 1979. He was 90 years old. His longtime
protégé Bayard Rustin, who at the time was director
of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, described his
mentor as a man tireless in his dedication to achiev-
ing equality and social justice. “No individual did
more to help the poor, the dispossessed and the
working class in the United States and around the
world than A. Philip Randolph,” said Rustin. “With
the exception of W. E. B. DuBois, he was probably
the greatest civil rights leader of this century until
Martin Luther King” (NYT,17 May 1979, A1). The
National Urban League mourned his passing. Presi-
dent Vernon Jordan honored Randolph as a “noble
and dedicated humanitarian” whose “brilliance
of... mind, magnificence of... voice, and his re-
fusal to succumb to pressure, made him a living leg-
end.” Shortly after his death, more than 1,500
people gathered to honor Randolph’s life and inspir-
ing legacy at a public memorial service at Avery
Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

Bibliography
Anderson, Jervis. A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Por-
trait.New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

Harris, William. Keeping the Faith: A. Philip Randolph,

Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car

Porters, 1925–1937.Urbana: University of Illinois

Press, 1977.

Pfeffer, Paula. A. Philip Randolph, Pioneer of the Civil

Rights Movement.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State

University Press, 1990.

Wintz, Cary, ed. African American Political Thought,

1890–1930: Washington, DuBois, Garvey, and Ran-

dolph.Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996.

Rand School of Social Science

The school founded by Carrie Rand and her hus-

band, George Davis Herron. The institution,

which in 1917 was established in the Union

Rand School of Social Science 441

A. Philip Randolph, cofounder and coeditor of The

Messenger (Yale Collection of American Literature,

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)