A. Philip Randolph Quotes
American democracy is a failure. It is a miserable failure. It has failed because it is a limited and racial and divisible democracy …. How can we fight for democracy in Burma, a country we have not seen, when we don't have democracy in Birmingham, a city we have seen.
The country was in the midst of fighting WWII and Burma was one of the battle fronts.
A. Philip Randolph, 1889-1979, President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Press Release, 1942
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In that year he resigned from the War Department in protest of the discrimination and racism in the armed forces.
In the 1940’s equality and Civil Rights was a good wedge issue for Republicans because the most racist members of Congress were Democrats even though there were many Democrats who advocated strong civil rights. In 1964, there was a party realignment after the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. After that the most racist members of Congress and the political established switched to the Republican Party and this caused the Republicans to publicly soft pedal civil rights issues. It now became a wedge issue for the democrats, and very few national Republican figures would make such a statement as it would be misinterpreted by the racial right wing of the party.
Blacks were fighting and dying in WWII. They were equal when they were under fire, but otherwise not. The war was against fascist protagonists whose creed was inequality while the allies were upholding freedom and equality. But making that aspiration a reality was difficult.
In the 1930s African Americans who traveled were subject to countless humiliations whenever the sought hotels, rooming houses, restaurants and other accommodations. Gas stations would not allow them to use bathrooms and they were reduced to using open fields. Traveling and vacationing was, for Blacks, humiliating. Wikipedia: “Green reviewed hotels and restaurants that did business with African Americans during the time of Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the United States. He printed 15,000 copies each year. In the 1930s, Green began his work by compiling data on stores in the New York area that accepted black travelers, and published his first guide in 1936. Similar guides had been published for Jewish travelers, who sometimes faced discrimination. Green's guide was so popular that he immediately began to expand its coverage the next year to other US destinations, adding hotel and restaurants as well.”
When passed, the Social Security Act did not cover domestic or agricultural workers. But these were the two occupations that between employed over half of all African Americans. The Black labor leaders like A. Phillip Randolph, supported the Act as their union membership was covered. The Congress, although controlled by the Democrats had the albatross of the "Solid South" which would obstruct anything that would strengthen the Negro. The strategy the President Roosevelt and his new dealers adopted was to institutionalize Social Security for the majority of American workers and then bring in the occupations and groups that had originally been excluded. And this is what they did however, enforcement of Social Security coverage with individual domestic workers was still a problem in the 21st century.
This was a very courageous speech for the President to give. Senator Hubert Humphrey had proposed civil rights legislation. At the time most of the racial conservative members of Congress were Democrats and not Republicans as they would become after Civil Rights legislation actually passed in 1964. There was little possibility that the civil rights law would pass as the Southern Democrats could filibuster it in the Senate. None the less Truman supported the legislation and the principle of equal rights despite the fact that he was a Southerner and he knew he would lose the support of the conservative wing of his party.
