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Louisville Chapter, APRI hosting 27th Annual Banquet
Where
Louisville, KY
When
April 10, 2010
Dear Friends,
The Louisville Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute will hold its Twenty- Seventh Annual Banquet, honoring out founder Asa Philip Randolph on Saturday April 10, 2010 at UAW Local 862 Hall, 3000 Fern Valley Road, Louisville, KY 40213-3522.
Asa Philip Randolph, prominent labor and civil rights leader, was President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters that was organized in 1925. He served as an International President of that union from 1925 until his retirement in 1968. He was also Vice President of the AFL-CIO and the founder of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
In the 1940’s Randolph developed the strategy of mass protest, a political tactic which has since become commonplace in the civil rights movement, in order to win two profoundly significant Executive Orders.
In 1941, with the advent of World War II, he conceived of the idea of a massive March on Washington to protest the exclusion of black workers from the jobs in the defense industries. He agreed to call off the march only after President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 banning discrimination in defense plants and established the nation’s first- “Fair Employment Act”.
In 1948 Mr. Randolph warned President Truman that if segregation in the Armed Forces were not abolished, masses of citizens would refuse induction. Soon Executive Order 9981 was issued to comply with his demands.
He served as Organizer and Director of the August 28, 1963 “March on Washington” for Jobs and Freedom, which bought a quarter of a million people to the nation’s capital. He continued to pursue these goals at the 1966 White House Conference.