James Lee Dickey: An Analysis of One African-American's Leadership in Jim Crow TexasMain MenuJames Lee Dickey: An Analysis of One African American's Leadership in Jim Crow TexasIntroductionSlave No MoreFreedman after Bondage 1865 - 1955African American LeadershipContenders for the TitleJames Lee DickeyThe Leadership of James Lee DickeyLocations in Dr. James Lee Dickey's StoryGoogle locations for Dr. Dickey's BiographyMaureen Grayab288c53aefb942d3e6102c32f4d6e3a10268d3b
A New Leader
1media/APR BSCT graphic 1920s.jpg2018-03-14T17:50:30-07:00Maureen Grayab288c53aefb942d3e6102c32f4d6e3a10268d3b197016A. Phillip Randolph leads the largest black union in the United Statesimage_header2018-04-10T00:50:50-07:00Maureen Grayab288c53aefb942d3e6102c32f4d6e3a10268d3bA. Phillip Randolph headed the most successful black union, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. After a few missteps in the 1920’s, the union defeated its opponent, the Pullman Railcar Union in 1935, thus winning access to the Railway Labor Act. Porters received a substantial wage increase and substantially improved work schedule. Though the union represented only a small percentage of African Americans, its persistence pushed A. Philip Randolph into the national spotlight as a black leader. Though the NAACP was still diligently working for the reinstitution of civil rights for African Americans, the BSCP’s success was due to black solidarity rather than integration with whites so the black community turned to a union leader instead of Walter White. Since unionization and communism in American seemed to march to the same drummer, A. Philip Randolph success made him the obvious choice as president of the Communist-backed National Negro Congress (NNC). Randolph’s primary focus in pre-WWII America was for African Americans to share in the economic boom of munitions factories as war drew near, however, more than half the factories awarded government contracts in the early 40s declared they would hire whites only. Those that did hire blacks relegated black workers to mop and broom work. Even worse, as the economy rebounded from the Great Depression, New Deal Programs that had benefited African Americans were drawing to a close.
