United Presbyterian Church of West Orange

ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF

 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE AND HISTORY (ASALH)

301 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, NW | SUITE 1508 | WASHINGTON, DC 20001 202.238.5910 | ASALH.ORG

® 2025 BLACK HISTORY THEME EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 AFRICAN AMERICANS AND LABOR

The 2025 Black History Month theme, African Americans and Labor, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture. Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora. The 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor,” sets out to highlight and celebrate the potent impact of this work.

Considering Black people’s work through the widest perspectives provides versatile and insightful platforms for examining Black life and culture through time and space. In this instance, the notion of work constitutes compensated labor in factories, the military, government agencies, office buildings, public service, and private homes. But it also includes the community building of social justice activists, voluntary workers serving others, and institution building in churches, community groups, and social clubs and organizations. In each of these instances, the work Black people do and have done have been instrumental in shaping the lives, cultures, and histories of Black people and the societies in which they live. Understanding Black labor and its impact in all these multivariate settings is integral to understanding Black people and their histories, lives, and cultures.

Africans were brought to the Americas to be enslaved for their knowledge and serve as a workforce, which was super exploited by several European countries and then by the United States government. During enslavement, Black people labored for others, although some Black people were quasi-free and labored for themselves, but operated within a country that did not value Black life.

After fighting for their freedom in the Civil War and in the country’s transition from an agricultural based economy to an industrial one, African Americans became sharecroppers, farm laborers, landowners, and then wage earners. Additionally, African Americans’ contributions to the built landscape can be found in every part of the nation as they constructed and designed some of the most iconic examples of architectural heritage in the country, specifically in the South.

Over the years to combat the super exploitation of Black labor, wage discrepancies, and employment discrimination based on race, sex, and gender, Black professionals (teachers, nurses, musicians, and lawyers, etc.) occupations (steel workers, washerwomen, dock workers, sex workers, sports, arts and sciences, etc.) organized for better working conditions and compensation. Black women such as Addie Wyatt also joined ranks of union work and leadership to advocate for job security, reproductive rights, and wage increases.

2025 marks the 100-year anniversary of the creation of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids by labor organizer and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, which was the first Black union to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. Martin Luther King, Jr incorporated issues outlined by Randolph’s March on Washington Movement such as economic justice into the Poor People’s Campaign, which he established in 1967. For King, it was a priority for Black people to be considered full citizens.

The theme, “African Americans and Labor,” intends to encourage broad reflections on intersections between Black people’s work and their workplaces in all their iterations and key moments, themes, and events in Black history and culture across time and space and throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora. Like religion, social justice movements, and education, studying African Americans’ labor and labor struggles are important organizing foci for new interpretations and reinterpretations of the Black past, present, and future. Such new considerations and reconsiderations are even more significant as the historical forces of racial oppression gather new and renewed strength in the 21st century.

ASALH MISSION

To promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community.

2/2/25

A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979)

A. Philip Randolph was born in the late 1800s in Crescent City, Florida. He and his older brother attended Cookman Institute; an all-Black institution of higher education now known as Bethune-Cookman University. After graduation, he became involved in the movement for Black economic and social freedom in Harlem, New York.

In the summer of 1925, Randolph met with porters from the Chicago-based Pullman Palace Car Company. The mostly Black Pullman workforce were paid lower wages than white railway workers and faced harsh conditions and long working hours. Over the next ten years, Randolph worked with these workers to form and organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. When the union was finally recognized in 1937 it became the first predominately Black labor union in the nation.

Throughout the next forty years, Randolph continued to be a pioneer for the connected causes of racial and economic justice. During World War II, Randolph helped lead the fight to end discrimination in the defense industry and military, paving the way for Executive Order 8802, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and the desegregation of the armed services. In the 1950s, Randolph served as one of the first two Black vice presidents of the new AFL-CIO and founded the Negro American Labor Council (NALC). Randolph was also one of the major organizers of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, bringing together nearly 250,000 people to demand freedom and better lives through greater civil rights.

"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.”

— A. Philip Randolph

• Black workers participated in labor actions even before the Civil War, with documented strikes like the Washington Navy Yard caulkers strike in 1835. 
• Exclusion from unions:

Despite their participation, African Americans often faced exclusion from mainstream labor unions due to racial discrimination. 

• The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters:

Led by A. Philip Randolph, this union became a major force for Black labor activism, advocating for improved working conditions and fighting against racial discrimination in the railroad industry. 

• Post-WWII impact:

World War II led to a surge in Black labor participation, which in turn fueled the Civil Rights movement as Black workers demanded equal rights in the workplace. 

• Key figures:

Besides A. Philip Randolph, other important Black labor leaders include Clara Day (Teamsters Local 743), Hattie Canty (Culinary Workers Union), and Maida Springer Kemp (garment industry organizer).