He Had a Dream

I know I'm not going to have the time to continue doing these blogs as often as I have but today is a special day for me. Not because it's Income Tax Day or the day of the ridiculous tea bag dunking charade, but because it's the anniversary of the birth of A. Philip Randolph on April 15, 1889.

He was the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the principal organizer of the Civil Rights March made famous by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. "You could look it up."

The personal note for me was because I merged the Sleeping Car Porters in 1978 with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks and while I was at the AFL-CIO was in charge of commissioning a bust be done of him at Union Station in Washington. You can see it across from the waiting room seats near the entrances. The powers that be at AMTRAK wanted to hide it someplace "so it wouldn't be vandalized." I told them "we want it to be where people can see it and Phil won't let his bust be vandalized." As you can see when you're in Union Station, I won the argument.