Asa Philip Randolph Impact

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The amount of social activist during the 20th century have had a tremendous impact on the african american community. However during the 20th Century, what positive impacts did Asa Philip Randolph have on African American’s job opportunities and working conditions? His actions did indeed positively impacted the lives of many African American people by improving the working conditions and the ability for them to seek jobs. A. Philip Randolph was born on April 15, 1889 in Crescent City Florida and died May 16, 1979. He was a social activist and took down capitalism and held many jobs, but he mainly focused on civil rights for African Americans. Randolph was able to politically influence the government and organize people to protest against the …show more content…
For instance the Pullman company founded by George Mortimer Pullman and Benjamin Field who had twas about , which gave blacks the job of making and taking down beds, carrying luggage, cleaning bathrooms and spittoons, shining shoes, and assisting any white passenger’s needs. The African American women served as maids to any white women that traveled alone or with children. Pullman’s white workers were paid $120 a month while the black workforce was paid $60 per month, also the black workforce was discriminated against. Besides the unfair treatment, African Americans did not have as much job opportunities as whites had; in 1930, 40 percent of all blacks worked in farms and very few of them even had their own land. In 1932, the unemployment rate for blacks was over 50 per cent and it was even more in other places.. The service of the Pullman company was to make it possible for passengers to board one of his train cars and the people who took care of the passengers were called porters. There job is to stow away any of the passengers’ luggage and then …show more content…
. . but they were uncertain of their freedom. In such a state of civil, political, and economic uncertainty, why wouldn’t Pullman seek to get them to work on a semi-feudalistic basis?” (Harris 3). The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters were attempting to solve, they wanted to enable for everyone to be aware of the issues going on with blacks and businesses. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which used to organize workers and negotiate contracts with the Pullman Company. He worked toward an increase in wages for members of the brotherhood, a 240-hour work month ( which is ten hours a day for six days) and that the work they produced would be shown in how much they are paid. He told them “I’ve spent my life ... studying the economic and social history of our group from the days of slavery onward, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not enough to build churches... You have to take that responsibility upon your own shoulders, building something on which you can depend, and not depend on the Pullman Company ... you can’t expect a Pullman conductor to take the responsibility upon himself to fight for you” (Kersten 35). One could argue that the fight between the Pullman Company and the BSCP benefited the African American

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