Asa Philip Randolph was a major influencer in the Civil Rights Movement. Dubbed a “gentle warrior,” he led 250,000 people in the historic 1963 March on Washington, of which he was the chief organizer. The labor activist and strategist served as president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which forged an alliance between the Civil Rights Movement and the labor movement, and president emeritus of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly black labor union, which he built.
Big Bill Broonzy, born Lee Conley Bradley, was a blues singer and guitarist who copyrighted more than 300 songs during his career. He was credited as having one of the most “versatile repertoires on record, from a slick urban blues sound to his acoustic country blues roots as well as folk and traditional spirituals.” He worked as a Pullman Porter during the 1920s. Civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery paraphrased Broonzy’s “Black, Brown and White Blues” during the benediction at the 2009 inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama.
Matthew Alexander Henson was the first African American arctic explorer. Between expeditions, Henson returned to the U.S. in 1902 and took a job as a Pullman Porter with the Pennsylvania Railroad to earn a living and to see America’s beauty, working several railway lines traveling through the Northeast, Midwest and the South. In 1945, he was awarded a U.S. Navy medal for his Arctic achievements and in 1955 he received honorary doctoral degrees from Howard University and Morgan State University. In October 1996, the U.S. Navy commissioned USNS Henson, a Pathfinder-class oceanographic survey ship named in his honor. Also named in his honor are the Matthew A. Henson Earth Conservation Center in Washington, D.C. and several schools.
