Black History Month and Labor Leaders
This is a modified version of a member email initially sent out on 2/28/25.
Hi all,
We’re fairly close to the end of February but this entire month is dedicated to Black History and I would be remiss if I neglected this opportunity to highlight some influential labor leaders. I mentioned a few facts about Martin Luther King Jr’s stances on unions in my 1/16 email but I think it's reductive to present him as the only influential African-American labor leader. Below are a few individuals from labor history who I believe deserve similar recognition for their contributions to the rights we enjoy today. I’ve attached photos of them to this email - all credit goes to the Library of Congress and New York University’s Records Library.
Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1979) was a Black labor organizer who worked throughout the early 20th century. After many years of organizing in Harlem he helped found the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, (the first Black-majority union in the United States) which eventually grew to 18,000 members. Asa also fought against segregation in the military during WW2, something which helped lead to the desegregation of the armed forces and the passage of the Fair Employment Practices Committee. I mentioned MLK’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (MOW) in my 1/16 email - Asa was one of the key organizers of the event.
Dora Lee Jones (1890-1972) was a Black labor organizer who helped found the Domestic Worker’s Union in New York in 1934. She pushed back against inconsistent wages for paid household labor and fought for both overtime and an end to dangerous working conditions (one example - domestic workers were often asked to clean the outside of upper-floor windows without any safety nets or ropes). I couldn’t find a huge amount of information on this but I believe this group eventually merged with the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU) in the 1940’s, effectively forming one large union of maids (mostly women) and janitorial staff (mostly men). This group then rebranded again in 1968 to Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and is now one of the largest union groups in the world with 1.7 million members.
Anna Arnold Hedgeman (1899-1990) was a Black labor activist who worked throughout the middle of the 20th century. She pushed to make the Fair Employment Practices Committee permanent - the original group was designed only to prevent discrimination during “wartime activities.” Her effort was ultimately unsuccessful and the committee was decommissioned in 1946, but she helped establish the need and pave the way for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which was established by the Civil Rights Act in 1964. She also helped organize the March on Washington in 1963 and was a cofounder of the National Organization of Women (NOW) in 1966.
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) is hard to describe in a satisfying manner because he was involved in so many movements and did so many important things throughout his life. Bayard was a fierce advocate for equality in every part of society - he was expelled from college in 1936 after he organized a strike on campus. He worked with Asa Randolph to grow the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and was also involved with Asa’s military desegregation efforts. In the early 1940s he went to California to defend the property of interned Japanese citizens, then played a key role in desegregating interstate buses. He helped found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), one of the largest civil rights organizations in America, then traveled to India in 1948 to learn nonviolent resistance techniques from individuals involved with Gandhi. Rustin continued to be involved in labor organizing and civil rights for the rest of his life but received little recognition at the time (and was barred from key civil rights advocacy roles) due to the fact he was outed as gay in the 1950s. Despite this, Rustin was another key organizer of the March on Washington and was identified as such with Asa Rudolph when Life Magazine covered the event.
I’ve just described 4 incredibly influential Black labor leaders but I’m sad to say I’m only scratching the surface. I can’t go into detail but I’d also like to mention Hattie Canty, the first Black president of the Culinary Worker’s Union who helped bring the union to 84 countries during her term, Nannie Helen Burroughs, a mentor of MLK who helped merge the voting rights and labor rights fight in the 1920s, Curt Flood, whose legal battles helped get labor rights for professional athletes (such as the right of being a “free agent”), Mary McLeod Bethune, who helped run the first African-American teacher’s union (a predecessor to the NEA), and Chris Smalls, the most modern of this list and the first person to successfully unionize an Amazon warehouse.
There’s a few takeaways I think we all can glean from these examples. One is that organizing can happen in any industry. Another is that labor leaders, by and large, rarely come from privileged backgrounds or have special training that prepares them for their work. They often start when they recognize a need for organized efforts in their industry and they often succeed through the application of continuous effort, not specialized skills and techniques that you learn in school. That’s not to say that there aren’t better and worse ways to organize or that professional organizers can’t make an impact - it’s to say that passion for change can be one of the most important things that determines the success of a union or organizing effort. It’s also worth emphasizing that very few labor organizers created something wholly new by themselves. Most built on efforts from those that came before - Anna Hudson, for instance, helped build the EEOC with the foundation that Asa Rudolph and Bayard Rustin built desegregating the military. Many others only accomplished things like the March on Washington by working with other organizers and coordinating dozens of different organizations.
Anyways, I mention all of this because I think it’s important that union members recognize and applaud the efforts of those that came before - prior labor efforts have built a solid foundation of labor rights that allow us to go even further in the present. In addition, I hope some of these examples serve as inspiration. Our annual elections are coming up and I would love to see more members run for the open positions (Vice President, Membership Director, Resolutions Director, and 2 Citywide Representative Roles) once nominations open (probably early April). If you’re looking to make an impact in your community and are on the fence about running, please seriously consider applying. Don’t think you’re not ready or unqualified to run - almost none of our current board had any union experience when they first began. Activists have to start somewhere and UAEA could be either a small way you give back to the community or the beginning of your involvement in much bigger things.
Thanks for a great week everyone.