A. Philip Randolph, Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement

The importance of black socialist civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979), organizer of the Pullman porters--the first all-black labor union, whose nonviolent disobedience strategies anticipated those of Martin Luther King Jr.--has been neglected, rightly argues Pfeffer, associate professor of history at Chicago's Mundelein College. This well-researched study, focusing exclusively on Randolph's career, chronicles his efforts in the 1940s to integrate the armed forces and schools, and his unremitting struggle to achieve economic parity for blacks through fair employment practices, despite dissension among social activists. At the 1963 March on Washington, chaired by Randolph, King proclaimed his ``dream''--which the older man had done much to define. The book resurrects fittingly a major, largely forgotten pivotal leader. (June)