SENATE STATE GOVERNMENT, WAGERING, TOURISM & HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 3342

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  NOVEMBER 15, 2021

      The Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism, and Historic Preservation Committee reports favorably Senate Bill No. 3342.

     This bill makes an appropriation of $90,000 to the Essex County Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute for the purpose of erecting a statue in honor of A. Philip Randolph to be located at Newark Penn Station.

     A. Philip Randolph was an American labor leader, civil rights activist, and politician.  From his 1912 co-founding of an employment agency called the Brotherhood of Labor, to the organization of the 1963 March on Washington where he shared the podium with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Mr. Randolph was a leading figure before, during and after the Civil Rights era. 

     Mr. Randolph also founded of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, which by 1937 had become the first official African American labor union, which continues to exist through the Transportation Communications International Union and co-founded the political magazine The Messenger in 1917, which published articles calling for the inclusion of more Black people in the armed forces and war industry and demanding higher wages for Black workers.  Mr. Randolph’s accomplishments were further recognized when he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. 

     In an effort to continue the work he had dedicated his life to, Mr. Randolph co-founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization aimed at studying the causes of poverty which continues to fight for racial equality and economic justice through its numerous chapters located throughout the country with three located in New Jersey.  Mr. Randolph created an alliance between the civil rights movement and the labor movement, with the goal of uniting people of all backgrounds in the collective goals of political and social freedom and economic justice.  The triumphs and accomplishments of A. Philip Randolph are just as important today as they were during his lifetime and should be commemorated through a visual representation of the man himself.