Reframing Randolph: Labor, Black Freedom, and the Legacies of A. Philip Randolph

Culture, Labor, History Series

by Andrew E. Kersten, Clarence Lang, William P. Jones (Contributor)

At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America's multifaceted radical tradition, a leading spokesman for Black America, and a potent symbol of trade unionism and civil rights agitation for nearly half a century. But with the dissolution of the BSCP in the 1970s, the assaults waged against organized labor in the 1980s, and the overall silencing of labor history in U.S. popular discourse, he has been largely forgotten among large segments of the general public before whom he once loomed so large. Historians, however, have not only continued to focus on Randolph himself, but his role (either direct, or via his legacy) in a wide range of social, political, cultural, and even religious milieu and movements. The authors of Reframing Randolph have taken Randolph's dusty portrait down from the wall to reexamine and reframe it, allowing scholars to regard him in new, and often competing, lights. This collection of essays gathers, for the very first time, many genres of perspectives on Randolph. Featuring both established and emergent intellectual voices, this project seeks to avoid both hagiography and blanket condemnation alike. The contributors represent the diverse ways that historians have approached the importance of his long and complex career in the main political, social, and cultural currents of twentieth-century African American specifically, and twentieth-century U.S. history overall. The central goal of Reframing Randolph is to achieve a combination of synthetic and critical reappraisal.

Genres: Biography, History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Andrew E. Kersten is a professor of history in the Department of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay.

Reviews

[David Lucander · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really well-done anthology of 11 historians (10 essays, one jointly written) giving their views on Randolph's life and legacy.

I've read dozens (hundreds?) of articles and books about Randolph and the various organizations/causes he was associated with, and I gotta say that Reframing Randolph is my favorite on the subject for years. I have my bias in that the writers offer fresh insights about someone who, for me, is well known - hard for me to say what "the" book on him is to recommend for the general reader. If I had to write a prescription, I'd say any of the biographies, this book, and the edited volume of Randolph's works, For Jobs and Freedom: Selected Speeches and Writings of A. Philip Randolph. Reading those three together gives a full-length bio, a bunch of neat perspectives on his life & work, and a book of his own words.

I've read many of the full length books by authors who contributed to this volume, including Death Blow to Jim Crow: The National Negro Congress and the Rise of Militant Civil Rights: The National Negro Congress and the Rise of Militant Civil Rights, A. Philip Randolph: The Religious Journey of an African American Labor Leader, The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights, Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisisand wrote one of them myself - Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941-1946. If you don't have the time to do that, Reframing Randolph is totally for you because the authors distill their basic arguments into an essay-length format.

Taylor's article on Randolph's religion really shines, I think the shorter format allows her writing to be a lot more punchy than her monograph on the subject. Gellman's piece is really good too, in that it riffs on stuff that wasn't totally in his book about the National Negro Congress so it's a pretty original piece. If you don't have time to read A. Philip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights, check out Arnesen's chapter because it's an interesting portrait of Randolph's ideological development during his early Harlem years.

Hopefully this comes out in pbk. someday so it's available for a broader audience.

It's tough for me to pick a favorite from an anthology that is this stacked, kind of like singling out the best five Yankees of all time.