By Marian Wright Edelman
“Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted. Freedom and justice must be struggled for by the oppressed of all lands and races, and the struggle must be continuous, for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationships.”
–A. Philip Randolph
Every February, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the organization established in 1915 by “the Founder of Black History” Dr. Carter G. Woodson, designates a theme for the observance of Black History Month. This year’s theme is African Americans and Labor.
Dr. Woodson established the first “Negro History Week” 99 years ago this week, and as ASALH notes, the theme this year coincides with another anniversary: “2025 marks the 100-year anniversary of the creation of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids by labor organizer and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, which was the first Black union to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. Martin Luther King, Jr. incorporated issues outlined by Randolph’s March on Washington Movement such as economic justice into the Poor People’s Campaign, which he established in 1967. For King, it was a priority for Black people to be considered full citizens.” Of course, that need for economic opportunity for Black workers as a cornerstone for full citizenship was a centerpiece of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
As ASALH explains, highlighting African Americans and labor “focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture. Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora . . . [T]he notion of work constitutes compensated labor in factories, the military, government agencies, office buildings, public service, and private homes. But it also includes the community building of social justice activists, voluntary workers serving others, and institution building in churches, community groups, and social clubs and organizations. In each of these instances, the work Black people do and have done have been instrumental in shaping the lives, cultures, and histories of Black people and the societies in which they live.”
At a moment when Black workers, along with women workers, immigrant workers, and so many others, are under implied and direct attack, this focus is prescient and timely. When A. Philip Randolph led the planning for the first proposed March on Washington in 1941 protesting segregation in defense jobs and the armed forces, the march was called off after President Franklin Roosevelt responded with the executive order banning discrimination in the defense industry, the first Presidential directive on race since Reconstruction. In the next administration, President Harry S. Truman responded to continued advocacy with the executive orders ordering the desegregation of the federal workforce and the military. The contrast to today is clear. Yet so is the inspiration that comes from studying history and knowing how generations before ours ensured we kept evolving, which is at the heart of all observances of Black History Month. As ASALH concludes their summary of this year’s theme: “Like religion, social justice movements, and education, studying African Americans’ labor and labor struggles are important organizing foci for new interpretations and reinterpretations of the Black past, present, and future. Such new considerations and reconsiderations are even more significant as the historical forces of racial oppression gather new and renewed strength in the 21st century.”