House Bill 9471

    Florida House of Representatives - 1998                HR 9471

        By Representative Hill






  1                         House Resolution

  2         A resolution honoring A. Philip Randolph,

  3         crusader for justice, civil rights activist,

  4         and trade union leader.

  5

  6         WHEREAS, A. Philip Randolph once said that "Salvation

  7  for a race, nation, or class must come from within. Freedom is

  8  never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is

  9  exacted," and

10         WHEREAS, with these words A. Philip Randolph expressed

11  the most animating passion of his public life: the struggle

12  for racial freedom and economic justice, both of which, he

13  maintained, should be inextricably linked, and

14         WHEREAS, born on April 15, 1889, Asa Philip Randolph

15  was a native of Florida who grew up as a child and young adult

16  in Jacksonville, and

17         WHEREAS, A. Philip Randolph's achievements bear the

18  imprint of his convictions, and

19         WHEREAS, Randolph's organizing of the Brotherhood of

20  Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, the first national effort at

21  black trade unionism, was an attack upon the twin evils of

22  racial oppression and economic injustice, and

23         WHEREAS, his leadership of the March on Washington

24  Movement in the 1940's which opened the gates of federal

25  employment to black workers and also desegregated the nation's

26  armed services was clearly on behalf of jobs and freedom, and

27         WHEREAS, the secretariat of that movement was financed

28  largely by the union for whose members he won a considerable

29  measure of racial and economic dignity, and

30         WHEREAS, A. Philip Randolph's Gandhian mass movement of

31  the 1940's foreshadowed the great nonviolent civil rights

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    Florida House of Representatives - 1998                HR 9471

    504-146A-98






  1  crusade of the late 1950's and early 1960's, which helped to

  2  bring down the formal structures of public segregation,

  3  particularly in the South, and

  4         WHEREAS, A. Philip Randolph may be fairly seen as the

  5  father of modern civil rights activism in the United States,

  6  having inspired the younger leaders of the crusade, notably

  7  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, Dorothy Height, and

  8  Bayard Rustin, with the mass action he pioneered in the

  9  1940's, and

10         WHEREAS, fittingly, the last and greatest mass

11  demonstration Randolph conceived was the 1963 March on

12  Washington for Jobs and Freedom in which Dr. Martin Luther

13  King, Jr., became known as the most eloquent spokesman for the

14  progress of black Americans, and

15         WHEREAS, A. Philip Randolph retired from public life in

16  the late 1960's and died in 1979 at the age of 90, and

17         WHEREAS, he was known for his gracious Edwardian

18  manners, his monumental personal dignity, his incorruptible

19  moral integrity, and his unswerving dedication to the

20  political objectives he pursued, and

21         WHEREAS, Oswald Garrison Villard, descendant of a

22  distinguished 19th-century abolitionist wrote of Randolph:

23  "Randolph is absolutely to be trusted....he cannot be

24  influenced unduly. He stands four-square to all the winds. He

25  stoops to no wiles or artifices to gain his goals. He is

26  steeped in principle, and he has the complete certainty of the

27  true reformer in the eventual triumph of his cause," and

28         WHEREAS, in 1992, the A. Philip Randolph traveling

29  exhibit debuted in Washington, D.C., at the A. Philip Randolph

30  Institute National Educational Conference, and

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    Florida House of Representatives - 1998                HR 9471

    504-146A-98






  1         WHEREAS, the exhibit will be in Gainesville from May 23

  2  - July 4, 1998, at the Matheson Historical Center, and

  3         WHEREAS, the exhibit depicts Randolph's lifetime

  4  achievements as a civil rights activist and trade union

  5  leader, and

  6         WHEREAS, sponsored by the American Federation of Labor

  7  and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the exhibit was

  8  originally conceived as a memorial for Randolph's 100th

  9  birthday, and

10         WHEREAS, the exhibit completes the mission of the

11  federation's A. Philip Randolph Memorial Committee: to

12  permanently honor Randolph as "a symbol to all minority and

13  oppressed workers of the promise the American labor movement

14  holds for them in their struggle for a piece of the American

15  Dream," and

16         WHEREAS, A. Philip Randolph was indeed one of the most

17  exemplary public figures of our century, NOW, THEREFORE,

18

19  Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of

20  Florida:

21

22         That the House of Representatives of the State of

23  Florida hereby honors the memory of A. Philip Randolph,

24  crusader for justice, civil rights activist, and trade union

25  leader.

26         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution

27  be presented to the A. Philip Randolph Institute to be made a

28  permanent part of the A. Philip Randolph traveling exhibit, as

29  a tangible token of the sentiments expressed herein.

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