"The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed,
the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor."
- A. Philip Randolph
Black and blue: African Americans, the labor movement, and the decline of the democratic party by 
Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action, and the Construction Industry by 
Conflict of interests : organized labor and the civil rights movement in the South, 1954-1968 by 
For Jobs and Freedom: Selected Speeches and Writings of A. Philip Randolph by 
Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 1925-1945 by 
Scraping by : wage labor, slavery, and survival in early Baltimore by 
Southern labor and Black civil rights : organizing Memphis workers by 
There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality by 
African Americans who maintained railroad locomotive engines had to sue the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen all the way to the Supreme Court to gain admission to the union in 1944. Members involved with the lawsuit pose with A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979), President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and prominent civil rights leader, circa 1940-1944. AFL-CIO Still Images, Photographic Prints Collection.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech to an overflow crowd at the Mason Temple, March 18, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee in support of the Memphis Sanitation Workers.
North Carolina dining-hall workers on strike in 1969 in response to the SAGA Food Service group taking over. For more information visit UNC's website.