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From Randolph to Rustin to Obama
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Rarely can it be said that one person changed the world. It’s almost cliché as we use certain iconic figures and iconic images as shorthand to sum up history’s evolution. In our mind’s eye we see the image of Lech Walesa climbing that fence in the Gdansk shipyard, launching a movement that led to the enduring image of the Berlin Wall being torn apart piece by piece.
As we face 2009 and the incoming Obama administration, we face the future with optimism, not denying the current harsh reality, but allowing ourselves to believe in ourselves. It will get better, it already has because we made a choice and our salvation is at hand and as any believer can tell you there is no salvation without repentance. We repented in November and now we move forward. One man set the stage, one man planted that seed and along with his protégé mapped the course decades ago. So it’s time to recognize our saints, to understand that the political process didn’t get us here, that shrewd consultants and large campaign coffers couldn’t simply purchase freedom’s progress.
History will note that A. Philip Randolph was the founding president and organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Workers who if you don’t already know were all named George. You see the Pullman Company thought you could strip a man of his dignity by taking away his name. But call them what you will, these men were strong and their dignity was intact. So they organized in a time when the audacity of hoping to be strong collectively was an invitation to further abuse. Randolph saw it another way, he saw it as a moral imperative and that the company would find the power of these men they called George intractable.
Randolph didn’t just stand up to Pullman; he took his moral imperative directly to the White House. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to integrate the defense industries even during an “all hands on deck” crisis, it was Randolph who changed his mind. When Harry Truman refused to integrate the armed forces it was Randolph that showed him a better way.
Randolph wasn’t just the organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; a union that is as consequential to this country as the Solidarity union was to Poland, he was the organizer of the March on Washington movement. You may not recall large marches on Washington to integrate the defense industry or the armed forces. That’s because Randolph had the respect and the strength of purpose to steer the ship of state simply by assuring the president that without change, without freedom, the marchers would come and demand it.
So it’s significant that the cover of Life Magazine after the march didn’t feature Martin Luther King, Jr. It featured A. Philip Randolph and his protégé Bayard Rustin. While King provided the words, it was Randolph who made the words become flesh. The words, profound expressions of a desire to be free, were magnified by the masses standing before our nation’s monuments demanding to be free.
While Randolph led the movement that brought us to that day, it was Rustin who developed the strategy that was the bridge to this day. It was in his essay “From Protest to Politics” that Rustin showed us the future. He said it was time to take the power of our ideals, the strength of our convictions and believe so strongly in the power of democracy that the tactic of protesting for effective change was only a way station to becoming the change. It was Rustin who planted the seed that would sprout and grow and turn into thousands of successful leaders, from city councils to statehouses and now to the White House itself.
In Genesis we are told that in six days God created the heavens and the earth with only his words. The power was in the word. So it is with the words of Randolph that today we can look forward to a future that we made. We can demand a better world, a more just society, and yes society can be equitable and profitable. Our economy and our spirit will flourish, but without Randolph leading the way and Rustin showing us the way we would still be in the wilderness.
I’m sure Barack Obama will deliver a stirring inaugural address. But I hope that he takes a moment to hear the voice of Randolph who laid the foundation that brought us to this day when he said:
“Salvation for a race, nation, or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted. Freedom and justice must be struggled for by the oppressed of all lands and races, and the struggle must be continuous; for freedom is never a final act, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationships.”
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