Biography
A. Philip Randolph was a Black socialist labor organizer, civil-rights leader, and co-editor (with Chandler Owen) of The Messenger, a radical Black socialist magazine published in Harlem. In August 1918, while on a speaking tour for the magazine in Cleveland, Randolph and Owen were arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917 for distributing The Messenger and for a speech opposing U.S. entry into World War I. They were held in the Cuyahoga County Jail and released on $1,000 bail. The case was ultimately dismissed — the federal judge reportedly told Randolph he was 'too young' to have written the editorial in question and refused to believe a Black man could have authored such radical material. Randolph went on to found the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, organized the planned 1941 March on Washington that pressured FDR into signing Executive Order 8802 desegregating the defense industry, and served as the lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
A March 19, 1921 letter from The Messenger’s editors, reproduced by Frederick G. Detweiler in 1922, dates their Cleveland arrest to August 4, 1918 and reports two and a half days in jail. The unsupported August 3–4 overnight interval has been removed; no discharge date is inferred from the fractional duration.
