Prometheus 6   

Early Years While many craft locals of the original American Federation of Labor would exclude blacks from membership, African Americans would become a growing part of the membership of the emerging industrial unions, making up 20% of the United Mine Workers by 1900. And, much as the United Farm Workers would become a vehicle for latino pride in the 1960s and 70s, one union in particular would become the emblem of black empowerment in the early part of this century, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, organized in 1925 and then led by A. Phillip Randolph.

Randolph is the most important civil rights leader most people have never heard of, despite being arguably more important to civil rights in the 20th century. The first black head of a labor union in the AFL, Randolph in many ways made the civil rights movement possible. He fought to desegregate defense factories in World War II, threatening to mount the first "March on Washington" during WWII. Roosevelt, fearing the political effects, agreed to establish the Fair Employment Practices Commission, the first major federal agency prosecuting discrimination in US industry. Randolph also fought with Truman to desegregate the US military. In 1963, it was Randolph who proposed the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.