EDWARD WATERS UNIVERSITY - Key Persons
Asa Philip Randolph was a groundbreaking leader, organizer, and social activist who championed equitable labor rights for African American communities, becoming one of the most impactful civil rights and social justice leaders of the 20th century. His activism spanned 60 years, and included the organization of the largest labor union for Black workers in the United States and the coordination of two Marches on Washington (1941 and 1963).
Randolph spent the formative years of his early life in Jacksonville, Florida. He was born on April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida, to an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, the Rev. James William Randolph, and his wife, Elizabeth Robinson Randolph. In 1891, when he was three years old, his family moved to Jacksonville. He attended Edward Waters College (a Historically Black College founded in 1866) from ages fourteen to sixteen before transferring to the Cookman Institute (a Historically Black educational institute founded in 1872 and located in Jacksonville), from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1907.
In 1911, recognizing the constraints that racial segregation placed on his life in his native Florida, Randolph left Jacksonville for New York City. Initially he hoped for a life on the stage but redirected his talents to issues of fairness and equity in employment and civic life. During World War I, Randolph faced formidable odds as he worked to unionize African American shipyard workers and elevator operators. During this time, along with his friend and collaborator Chandler Owen, Randolph edited and published the Messenger magazine between 1917 and 1925, during which it served as a promotional vehicle for the Harlem Renaissance.
Randolph's career as a labor leader took a new turn when he became the first president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, which by 1937 would become the first official African American labor union. After his victories in the arena of organized labor, in the 1940s, Randolph focused his attention on the larger goal of ending racial discrimination in government defense factories and desegregating the armed forces, both accomplished through presidential decrees. Becoming involved in additional civil rights work, he was a principal organizer of the proposed March on Washington in 1941, and the more famous 1963 March on Washington during which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
On May 16, 1979, at age 90, Mr. Randolph passed away. He was cremated, and his ashes were interred at the A. Philip Randolph Institute in Washington, D.C.
There are several sites in Jacksonville that pay tribute to the legacy of A. Philip Randolph. He is the namesake of the A. Philip Randolph Academies of Technology, A. Philip Randolph Boulevard (formerly Florida Avenue), and the adjoining A. Philip Randolph Park on Jacksonville's east side.
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is the 1st President and CEO of Edward Waters University. Dr. Faison is a visionary and prolific higher education leader having set an audacious vision for EWU as a destination institution of Emerging Eminence.
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"If there is anything more reprehensible than the practice of discriminiation upon a people because of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, it is for the people discriminated against to accept it without protest or resistance. It is an evidence of an utter lack of self-respect, the most priceless possession an individual or group can have, without which there can be no human dignity."
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- Reverend
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