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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2011
This essay focuses on the conception of social justice devised by A. Philip Randolph, noted socialist, co-founder of The Messenger, and organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Frank R. Crosswaith, a general organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and one-time Messenger correspondent, in the aftermath of World War I. Weaving together a socialist critique of modern industrial society with a powerful vision of human freedom and equality, Randolph and Crosswaith articulated a distinctly egalitarian conception of social justice that asserted the equal right of all to benefit from society's advances. Arguing that genuine social justice was predicated on the open participation of all, they fashioned a program of reform that drew on black racial identity to frame their vision of class consciousness and, in so doing, planted the roots of an independent strain of black radicalism that was not intellectually beholden to whites. Although historical writing on the New Negro recognizes the importance of Randolph and to a lesser degree Crosswaith, this writing overlooks their innovative thought and its philosophical and political basis.
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19 Ibid.
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27 A. Philip Randolph, “A New Crowd—A New Negro,” The Messenger, May-June 1919.
28 Frank R. Crosswaith, “The Future is Ours,” Black Worker, Aug. 1936, folder 1, box 5, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Papers.
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30 A. Philip Randolph, “Socialism,” folder 4, box 2, Randolph Papers, Schomburg Center.
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37 Both Dan Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (Baton Rouge, LA, 1979), and Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem during the Depression (Urbana, IL, 2004), detail the Communist Party's involvement in Harlem especially and illustrate that there were radical alternatives to Randolph and Crosswaith's left as well.
38 “The New Negro Woman,” The Messenger, July 1923.
39 Randolph, “A New Crowd – A New Negro.”
40 Dawahare, Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature, p. 18.
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47 Randolph, “Socialism.”
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59 Randolph, Address by A. Philip Randolph at Reunion of Old Timers.
60 Ibid.; Dawahare, Nationalism, Marxism and African American Literature, 19–20.
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62 Crosswaith, “The Negro at the Crossroads.”
63 Crosswaith, “The Future is Ours.”
64 Howe, Socialism and America, 7–9.
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78 A. Philip Randolph, Interview with John Slawson, Apr. 20, 1970, folder 2, box 42, Randolph Papers, Library of Congress.
79 Crosswaith, “The Future is Ours.”
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81 In discussing Debs's participation in the 1888–89 Burlington Railroad strike in Eugene V. Debs, Nick Salvatore explains that Debs came to understand the strike as the “ultimate” defense of workers' “basic integrity as men and citizens” (72, 79). This kind of framing of labor activism overlapped with the notion of social justice that Randolph and Crosswaith were devising.
82 “The Negro and the New Social Order,” The Messenger, Mar. 1919.
83 “Negro Workers: The A.F. of L. or I.W.W.” The Messenger, July 1919.
84 Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs, 68–72; Shannon, Socialist Party of America, 16–20.
85 Dawahare, Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature, 36–37.
