A. Philip Randolph - (African American Experience) by Andrew E Kersten (Paperback)

About the Book

Before the emergence of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., there were several key leaders who fought for civil rights in the United States. Among them was A. Philip Randolph, who perhaps best embodied the hopes, ideals, and aspirations of black Americans. In this concise and en...

Book Synopsis

Before the emergence of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., there were several key leaders who fought for civil rights in the United States. Among them was A. Philip Randolph, who perhaps best embodied the hopes, ideals, and aspirations of black Americans. In this concise and engaging new book, historian Andrew E. Kersten explores Randolph's influences and accomplishments as both a labor and civil rights leader.

Review Quotes

Andrew Kersten's A. Philip Randolph: A Life in the Vanguard accomplishes its goals to an exceptional degree. In clear, often eloquent, prose Kersten relates the essentials of Randolph's life and achievements. Kersten's sympathetic, but not uncritical, portrait is grounded in the extensive primary sources and recent scholarly studies without being overwhelmed by them. For the interested general reader and the discerning undergraduate, Kersten's Randolph should be the biography of choice.


This very fine biography of A. Philip Randolph reminds us that the roots of the 20th century civil rights movement are found as much in the urban North as in the rural South. Andrew Kersten never lets us forget that Randolph proved such a successful tribune because he faithfully advanced the aspirations of a restless, multiracial working class, within the world of Pullman service and without.

About the Author

Andrew E. Kersten is associate professor of history and the chair of social change & development at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He is the author of Race, Jobs, and the War: The FEPC in the Midwest, 1941-1946, Labor's Home Front: The American Federation of Labor and World War II, and numerous articles.