Black Leadership Analysis



Labor Movement

All Labor Has Dignity

This book chronicles King’s speeches and interactions with Unions between 1957 to 1968.

The chief obstacles to America fulfilling its promise are war, poverty, and racism. These three evils are intertwined and once person deeply understand them the lines between them are blurred. The forces that create, perpetuate, and defend the institutions are also aligned.

The three evils manifest as an ultra-right coalition: big business, military, and reactionaries in both parties. It is essential for students of Dr. King to remember he had opposition from both parties. This ultra-right coalition was formed because they used similar goals and tactics. The same way police are used to intimidate civil rights protesters the military threatens people in Vietnam. These entities work together to garner public support and maintain control.

More informally the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizen’s council weld power in opposition to the progressive agenda. He made clear both organizations were two sides of the same coin. The White Citizen’s Council would not use violence or racial slurs, but they would use legal means to undermine the civil rights movement. The White Citizens Council was more socially acceptable, so they could expose racist rhetoric in public that would aid the Ku Klux Klan in recruitment. Both organizations promoted regression and inequality in America.

To combat the ultra-right an ultra-left coalition needed to be formed from the civil rights, academia, the church, and labor movement. These movements are natural allies. Most black people are members of the working class. So labor rights, wage floors, old age medical care are vital to living freely in America. Labor will benefit from desegregation because there will not be a more vulnerable class of workers willing to break picket lines. Traditionally, black people would scab segregated unions. If labor allows people of all races to join the unions will be stronger.

Unions were some of the early financial supporters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Unions having access to well-employed people could crowdfund easily and quickly. The capital was put to good use in the Birmingham Campaign and the Montgomery Bus Boycott to name a few areas.

Fortunately, union funds did not stop King from speaking on racism and segregation in the unions. King implored the United Autoworkers Union to desegregate its local affiliates during an anniversary dinner he was asked to speak. His critique of discrimination in unions extended to the America Federation of Unions the largest and most powerful at the time.

King also praised many unions that had a history of integration and fighting for Civil Rights outsized the Union. The United Package Worker Union of America (UPWA) was an example of an integrated activist union. The UPWA even ran integrated schools in Appalachia. The CIO was not only integrated; it united workers from all trades. His affiliation with these radical unions led to much adversity for King.

Throughout King’s career, he was smeared as a Communist for his support of unions that were started by Communists. This book explains how many unions purged themselves off communists by the 1950s. Also, labor organizer Stanley Levison was considered to be a communist. The author that compiled the speeches in this book explains Levison cut ties with the Communist Party in 1957 before he met King. So King has no contact with Communists or the Communist Party.

All social ills were not merely due to policy. Automation ballooned unemployment by taking away lower skilled jobs. Blacks disproportionately occupied these jobs. White workers also felt this contraction in labor but not to the same extent as blacks. King proposed a universal basic income (UBI) to ease the effects of high unemployment. The government would peg UBI to median income, not the lowest income level.

UBI is the centerpiece of a comprehensive committed anti-poverty program. Previous anti-poverty programs targeted a single aspect of poverty such as housing or food. These programs were embarked on by groups that were not fully committed to seeing the program through. The federal government is the only entity big enough to address these issues in a holistic and sustained manner.

The Vietnam War in addition to being fundamentally immoral hindered the building of the welfare state. It diverted most of the countries resources into subverting Vietnam’s national will. Because the population wanted to support the troops and stand in solidarity against the enemy, the social justice movement was hampered. Many Americans felt a united front needed to be maintained and any internal strife should be postponed until peacetime.

The last speech in the book is “To The Mountain Top” given the day before King died. He explains how the Civil Rights Movement is just part of a larger world movement for justice. Starting with Plato, he gives a summary or Western history bending toward justice and landing right here with us at the Mason Temple in Memphis. He realized he would not make it there with us. However, we are to soldier on and continue his work.

Dr. Martin Luther King Library

This is a list of summaries of books written by MLK.

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Conflict

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Resolution

Stride Toward Freedom: Philosophy

The Measure of a Man

Strength to Love

Why We Can’t Wait: Philosophy

Why We Can’t Wait: History

All Labor Has Dignity

Where Do We Go From Here?: Black Power

Where Do We Go From Here?: America Now and Later

Trumpet of Conscience

Robert Lee Hill (1892 – 1963)

(1892 – 1963)


  • Founded the Progressive Farmers and Household Workers Union of America
  • Worked for Santa Fe Railway for forty years
  • Member of Topeka Kansas NAACP

The Elaine Massacre

Robert Lee Hill founded the Progressive Farmers and Household Workers Union of America in Arkansas in 1919. The founding of the union led to the Elaine Massacre that left somewhere between 250 to 850 black people dead and four or five white men dead. The Elaine Massacre is part of the Red Summer of 1919. The Red Summer consisted of numerous race riots in various cities and towns in America. The Elaine Massacre also led to the landmark Moore vs. Dempsey trial that will solidify the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Robert L. Hill was born in 1892 or 1898 [9] to working class parents. He married in 1916 [9] before going off to war. Hill was a World War I veteran [4]. His time served in the military, more than likely, led to his militancy. 370,000 blacks that fought in World War I [1], when they returned home, they were not afraid to stand up for their rights. Black WWI vets let many armed resistance movements in 1919 in major cities. When Hill returned home, he worked for Valley Planting Company.[9]

Even though Hill was not a sharecropper himself, he felt called to do something to help the sharecropper’s plight. A sharecropper, also known as a tenant farmer, is a person that rents a farm from a land owner. The sharecropper then lives on credit from the landlord until the harvest arrives. The landowner and tenant then agree to share the crop. The tenant gets a percentage of the crop, and so does the landowner. The farmer can then pay off the debt to the landowner and have enough profit to last the winter after the sale of the crop.

Unfortunately, in the southern cotton industry, this ideal scenario never plays out. Often sharecroppers were illiterate and uneducated so they could not evaluate the books to ensure they got their share of the crop. The landlord would not let the sharecropper see the books even if the sharecropper had an education. Because blacks had no legal recourse, landlords would confiscate the entire crop. Ultimately, the sharecropper stayed in perpetual debt.

Not only did debt keep black people in the cotton industry, so did the law. The black codes made it illegal for a black man to be without a job for an extended period. Most companies outside the cotton industry did not hire black people. The person would be forced into a work camp if convicted of vagrancy, not having a job. The work camp would force inmates to pick cotton.

The need for a union was evident. 1919 was one of the worst times for the Labor Movement. The Russian Revolution happened in 1917 and by 1918 Russia was a communist country. The revolution began as a prolonged labor strike that turned into a riot. When the Russian army was called in to stop the riot, the army joined the rebels. The Tsar had to abdicate and the world’s first communist republic was born. Many American capitalists were afraid the same thing could happen in America.

The labor movement was also not welcoming to black people. The American Federation of Labor’s (AFL) 1919 convention declared the job of the AFL was to protect the jobs of “native-born white men” and upheld the restrictions on blacks joining unions. [2] This declaration ultimately hurt the labor movement. Blacks in the North broke strike lines to work at factories. Blacks were used to dilute the power of the Union. The racial strife in the North can be traced back to fear of blacks crossing picket lines.

The cotton industry expected a downturn in 1919[4][1]. World War I ended in 1918 and the southern cotton industry had been supplying cotton for the allied troops. The demand for cotton from Europe was expected to decrease severely. The planters were especially wary of giving sharecroppers a fair shake in 1919.

Despite all the adversity, Hill was able to create nine lodges of his union across Arkansas.[3] It was at a meeting of the lodge at Hoop Sur that the trouble began. On September 30, 1919, the Union had a meeting with one hundred people on how to organize for collective bargaining. In attendance at the meeting were men, women, and children.

Hill expected to be harassed by the local plutocrats. He had six patrolmen stationed outside the Hoop Sur church.[1]The Missouri Pacific (MoPac) Railway had a private police force that worked in conjunction with the sheriff’s office.[4] An informant tipped a group of patrolmen that a union meeting was happening in Hoop Sur. An altercation ensued, and the parties exchanged gunfire. [1][4][6]The church was burned later that night to destroy evidence of return fire.[4] One MoPac agent died, and a sheriff’s deputy was wounded.

The blacks of Hoop Sur decided to prepare for retaliation. Many men took up arms to defend the residential area known as Helena. The sheriff organized a posse of five hundred to one thousand men [3] outside the courthouse. The attack from whites happened at mid-morning October 1st. The black resistance was able to hold off the onslaught, and only 15 to 20 blacks died on that morning.[4] The resistance accomplished an incredible task that day and will go down in history for their bravery.

The Governor decided to call in reinforcements. The Federal Government was afraid of a socialist uprising. The government allowed the Governor to bypass calling in the National Guard and gave him authority over 500 trained federal troops from Camp Pike. The intervention of federal troops caused the carnage.

The federal troops were responsible for most of the killing [4]. The soldiers carried machine guns, and white mobs from all over the South supplemented the force. Many unarmed blacks hid in the woods and were hunted down like dogs. Here are some of the quotes from whites that witnessed the massacre.

“[The white mobs and troops] shot and killed men, women, and children without regard to whether they were guilty or innocent of a connection with killing anybody or whether members of a union or not.”[1]

“Vigilantes killed a black woman pulled her dress over her head, and left her body on a road, another brutal lesson of what happened when [blacks] lost their place”[1]

“Several hundred (whites) … began to hunt negroes and shooting them as they came to them.”[3]

“Committed one murder after another with all the calm deliberation in the world, either too heartless to realize the enormity of their crimes, or too drunk on moonshine to give a continental darn.” [3][6]

“When finally the soldiers’ ammunition was exhausted, and their liquor ran low, they withdrew from the scenes of their sins against humanity, the remaining negroes gathered up their scattered dead and with slow, awkward step marched to their little churchyards and there said their simple rites over the bullet-riddled bodies of loved ones.”[6]

In the face of federal troops blacks still resisted. An eyewitness account from L.S. Dunaway reports a black dentist was arrested for his connection to the union. He and his three brothers were put in the back of two police cars. When the cars were transporting the men to jail, the envoy was ambushed. One of the police officers was shot with a shotgun. The other officers immediately killed the four suspects. [9]

The black resistance was not well documented. Much of the reason for such little information is the black men that were captured then freed were on extended furlough. They did not get a pardon. Furlough meant the governor could send them back to prison at any time. Also, after they saw the carnage inflicted on their families after their capture, they wanted to make sure the people that survived would not be attacked. No one wanted to be seen as bragging about shooting whites.

The fact that over 250 men were captured alive proves that the resistance was formidable. If the troops could simply annihilate the resistance, they would. There were too many instances of black towns being burned to the ground such as Rosewood, FL, and Tulsa, OK. The five hundred federal troops must have evaluated particular encampments and decided that forcing the rebels to surrender would reduce the loss of life. One corporal is reported to have died in the skirmishing. There is one quote by L.S. Dunaway that attest to the bravery of these men.

“There were those among [Blacks] that openly defied officers, citizens and soldiers alike, until death cut short their futile stand against the whites. ”

Unfortunately, after most of the resistance was captured or killed, blacks were killed indiscriminately in Elaine, AR. There are reports of black men being shot while running away from white mobs. Many eyewitness accounts report the killing of women and children. The troops often opened fire on unarmed civilians with machine guns. The exact number of blacks killed will never be known. Most of the bodies were burned in large pits to allow for quick disposal. [6] Many blacks fled Arkansas and created new lives in the North and West.

There is no record of Robert Hill participating in the fighting. However, there was a special search made for him.[6] He was able to escape to Boley, OK an all-black town in Oklahoma then moved to South Dakota to evade capture. [9]. He finally settled near Topeka, KS.

Topeka police captured Hill in 1920.[9] He had written a friend in Arkansas to let people know he was safe. The friend asked to meet him in Kansas City, MO. Hill agreed, and the friend tipped off the authorities.

The NAACP took the defense of Hill. After a prolonged legal battle, the NAACP prevented Hills extradition to Arkansas. Hill took an assumed name and worked for the Santa Fe Railway for forty years.[9] In gratitude to the NAACP, he served in the Topeka NAACP for many years.[9] He died in 1963.

Most of the black resistance was captured by October 3.[1] A few hundred people were put into makeshift jails to await trial. [3] The result of the original trial cause 12 men to be sentenced to death, 273 to pleas for second-degree murder, and a few had the case dismissed. Details on the trail and the landmark Moore vs. Dempsey case will be in next week’s Leader analysis.


No transcripts or recordings could be found of his speeches. However, L.S. Dunaway said, “Hill’s influence over the less intelligent Darkey was something marvelous.” According to Dunaway Hill said this:

“He had them believing that by standing together the negroes could make the white people divide with them in the matter of land ownership, and that if a peaceable division could not be obtained, then the negroes, outnumbering the whites about ten to one in that section, would “rise up and march on the whites with high-powered rifles and shotguns, thus showing the strength of the colored race.” p 107 [6]

For the sake of analysis, the statement’s truth will be assumed. The statement expresses an Orange level understanding of the situation of black people. Hill understands the underlying problem is economic, and once others realize that the real issue is money, poor whites and blacks are natural allies. The statement shows that Hill ultimately saw the struggle beyond racial lines.

Hill obviously was not against using physical force to protect members of his movement. He also made it clear to his followers that they had numbers in the town of Elaine and that they should not be intimidated by white people. The use of physical force is a precarious subject in black empowerment. The Elaine Massacre goes to illustrate this point. It is hard to speculate on what would happen if the black people of Hoop Sur did not have guards for the September 30 the meeting. Maybe the whites would have simply broken up the meeting, which there is little historical precedence. More than likely they would have hung Hill. It is also most probable they would have burned Helena to the ground if there had been no resistance on October 1st. The white mob of 500 to 1,000 people did not come to take six suspects peaceably. However, the result was the killing of 250 to 850 blacks in southeast Arkansas. Ultimately, white people have the firepower and numbers nationally. A large scale attack or defense will produce an outcome similar to the Elaine Massacre.


  1. Krugler, David (2-26-2015) America’s Forgotten Mass Lynching. from
  2. (5-25-2012) Causes of the 1919 Race Riots from
  3. Stockley, Grif (08-01-2016) Elaine Massacre from
  4. Johnson, J (02-27-2013) Evanescence The Elaine Massacre from
  5. Widell, Robert (08-2002) Blood In Their Eyes Review from
  6. Dunaway, L.S. (1925) What a Preacher Saw Through a Keyhole in Arkansas
  7. (May 2016) Never Forget America’s Mass Lynching from
  8. (05-07-2011) Race Riots of 1919 from
  9. Gruber, John (02-26-2015) Robert Lee Hill from

Asa Philip Randolph (1889 – 1979)

+ Organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
+ Pressured POTUS Franklin Roosevelt into signing Executive Order to stop
segregation in Defense Contracting
+ Pressure POTUS H. Truman into signing Executive Order to end segregation in the
+ Directed March on Washington in 1963
+ First Vice President of the AFL-CIO in 1955 to 1968
+ Founder of Negro American Labor Council
+ Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by POTUS Johnson
+ The movie “10,000 Black Men Named George” was written about Randolph’s life
Short Biography
Asa Philip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida in 1889 to a working class African Methodist Episcopal preacher and his wife. Randolph’s father, James W. Randolph, was heavily influenced by Black Nationalism. In the early 1900’s Henry McNeal Turner, fellow AME preacher was first developing a philosophy that called for black people to leave America in mass and resettle in Africa.[D] Turner also believes G-d was black and it was important for blacks to see G-d in their image. Black nationalist thinking will have a profound effect on Randolph’s life.
Randolph’s parents were not only armchair philosophers; they lived what they preached. A black man was being held in a Florida county jail. A mob was preparing to lynch the detainee, and James Randolph organized a protection force to surround the jail. His mother sat at home and protected the family with a loaded shotgun.[C] Philip Randolph vividly recounts the story in many sources.
In Randolph’s early years he excelled in school. Randolph graduated valedictorian of his high school class in 1907. He left Florida to pursue an acting career and went to New York City in 1911.[A] While in the acting community he was first introduced to Socialism. He began to devour all the information he could on the new philosophy. While at one of these Socialist meetings he met Chandler Owen, a Columbia law student. The two began a partnership that synthesized various elements of Socialism and black liberation. The pair was colloquially known in Harlem as “Lenin” (Owen) and “Trotsky” (Randolph).
The partnership of Randolph and Owen culminated in the periodical they published called the “Messenger” in 1917. “Messenger” campaigned against lynchings, American participation in World War 1, and segregation. The publication was endorsed by the Socialist Party of America and deemed by the Department of Justice as “the most dangerous of all Negro publications.” [A]Various ideological differences caused the publication to disband in 1919. [A]
Randolph initial forays as a union organizer were troublesome. He first attempted to organize New York City Elevator Operators. He then became president of the National Brotherhood of Workers of America, a shipyard worker union. The National Brotherhood dissolved due to pressure from the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
His greatest success as a union leader came with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). The largest group of Sleeping Car Porters worked for the Pullman Company. The Pullman Company was one of the biggest railroad companies in the early 1900’s. The Sleeping Car, as the name entails, had sleeping berths to allow a person to sleep on long train rides. The Pullman Company had a reputation for the best and most luxurious sleeping cars. A trip on a Pullman Car would be a huge status symbol.
A Sleeping Car Porter would be equivalent to a modern day airline stewardess, hotel concierge, and luggage handler all in one. The Sleeping Car Porter would greet the traveler on entry, carry their bags, inform them of train rules, show them around the train. Before the porters unionized, they would commonly work one hundred hours a week. The pay was $1,230 a year in 1927, when the poverty line was $1,500.
Randolph was elected president of the BSCP in 1925. It was the first time a black union took on a large corporation. As with many other labor movements, Pullman Company used violence and intimidation to subvert unionizing efforts. Despite adversity, the BSCP was able to sign 51% of porters into their union in the first year.[A] In 1935, Randolph was able to begin negotiations with the Pullman Company. In 1937, the Pullman Company entered the contract with the BSCP.
Randolph’s success in the BSCP made him a prominent figure in Civil Rights. He decided to turn his attention to racial segregation in the war industry. He partnered with Bayard Rustin to organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1941. Randolph threatened to have 50,000 people protesting in the city. POTUS F. Roosevelt felt the pressure and signed Executive Order 8802 also known as the Fair Employment Act. The Fair Employment Act ended racial segregation in war industry. The 1941 March was called off due to the signage of the executive order.
Randolph understood his work was incomplete. He now focused on ending segregation in the armed forces. Randolph formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service to pressure the government into abolishing segregation in military service. He went as far as telling black people not to register for the draft.[A] POTUS H. Truman felt this pressure and signed Executive Order 9981 to abolish military segregation in 1948.[A]
By the 1950’s, a new group of Civil Rights leaders was coming to the forefront. The most promising of the bunch was a young Georgia preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. Randolph arranged for Bayard Rustin to teach King how to organize and build coalitions. Rustin and Randolph’s tutelage culminated in King being the keynote speaker at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
While advocating for Civil Rights on the whole Randolph continued to fight for labor rights within the American Federation of Labor (AFL). America has a long history of racism and segregation in labor unions. Randolph also decided to fight this corruption inside the unions. The AFL chartered the BSCP in 1935. Randolph’s involvement continued through the merger with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Randolph served as vice president of the newly formed AFL-CIO from 1955 until 1968.
Randolph also got Civil Rights leaders involved in the labor movement. The only time Malcolm X participated in a labor strike was 1962’s fifty-six-day strike for the benefit of hospital workers at the Brookdale Medical Center. Malcolm X spoke at their rally and publicly supported the black and brown workers. It is important to note he shared the platform with Dr. Martin Luther King. [B]
A. Philip Randolph died in 1979 of a heart condition


Banks, W. M. 1996, Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Randolph, A.P 1917 and Owen, Chandler, Terms of Peace and the Darker Race, Poole Press Association (E-book version on Google Play)
A. Pfeffer, Paula F. (2000). “Randolph; Asa Philip”. American National Biography Online.
B. “A look at Malcolm X as a mirror for America” New York Times 12-16-1992
C. Asa Philip Randolph biography on
D. Scott, Daryl (1999) “ Immigrant Indigestion” Center for Immigration Studies

Website Powered by

Up ↑