Like DuBois, he wanted to use black solidarity
as a wedge with which to break through discrimination into a
biracial society and not as an end in itself.
Asa Philip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida, in 1889.
He was raised in a strict religious home. His father was a local
minister but he also had to hold down another full-time job in
order to support his family. Early in the century, Randolph
moved north and attended City College in New York.
During the First World War, Randolph, with Chandler Owen,
edited The Messenger and made it into an outspoken vehicle for
their own opinions. In its pages, they espoused a radical,
American brand of democratic socialism. They supported the
International Workers of the World, which many viewed as being
alien and communistic, and they questioned the advisability of
Negroes supporting the war effort. They were charged with
undermining the national defense, and they spent some time in
Jail. Both advocated a working-class solidarity of blacks and
whites which would resist exploitation by capitalism. In their
view, every nonunion man, black or white, was a potential scab
and a potential threat to every union man, black or white.
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