because you will publish a book about charles hamilton houston we will read. i want to thank everyone for participating and the audience for being here. please step outside and we can continue the conversation about "mr. civil rights." [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. like us on facebook. next, a panel discusses the history and legacy of the sleeping carf porters, one of the first african-american labor unions. the role of a philip randolph,

rights leader who organized the union. hosted by the association for the study of african american life and history, this event is about two hours. thank you, everybody, for coming here. my name is alan spiers, i'm the -- npca has served as leading voice of the american people on behalf of their national parks since we were founded in 1919. it's our mission to protect and enhance america's parks for current and future generations. we are a very proud partner of

the association. they are hosting their 99 conference. i look forward to celebrating their centennial next european we have a couple of objectives today. about two hours to chat with you about some important topics. adding a unit to the national park service on chicago's southside would commemorate the industrialist capitalist. merchants of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. connected topics. , if peopleet started could make sure if you have a cell phone, please place it on

silent or vibrate or turn it off so we don't have birds chirping and portions of mozart symphony and trekking -- interrupting the presentations. traveled on sleeping cars in the decade prior to the civil war. he found them to be mostly crammed and uncomfortable. businessouple of other ventures, he decided he would launch himself into the industry of creating these luxurious sleeping cars that could accommodate high and travelers -- high-end travelers. he was successful from the start just before the american civil war. one of the things that happened to expedite the fame and fortune of the company was linked to the assassination of president abraham lincoln. sentlincoln's body was

back to springfield, illinois, the train that took lincoln's body back to his hometown had a couple of pullman cars attached to it. the reporters would lament on the untimely death of the president and comment on the luxurious nature of those cars. they became something of an overnight sensation in that regard. the business got a boom from the tragedy of the assassination of the president. after the civil war, pullman did decide the best workforce for porters working on his luxury is sleeping cars would be formerly enslaved african-americans. he felt these people would know how to work in close with white kind tell -- white clientele. he went on to be one of the largest employers of african-americans in the united states. that led to the emergence of the brotherhood of sleeping car philip randolph as a

leader of that union. we will get to the other aspects of pullman's industrial struggles, the union. we will have our panel of experts talk about that. i want to introduce the folks who will be sharing this information with you today. , dr.ve dr. cornelius bynum , sandra washington and lee aaron fully. to haveoing presentations from each of our panelists that will run 15 minutes or so. we will have some dialogue and discussion once panelists finished follow-up questions. you have questions, be

prepared to ask them. we have the mike appearing front -- we have the microphone up here in front. i would like to turn it over to dr. bynum. >> good afternoon. thank you for being here. i will give you a brief background on myself. it's an important way of coming to understand my journey with randolph as a research topic. i'm originally from louisville, kentucky and went to the university of virginia where i did my undergraduate work and graduate work. it was during those years 19-21 when i came to an tiffany about history and my epiphany about history

and my life. i took a civil rights history course and we were talking about black soldiers in the war, the second world war. it got me to thinking about my own personal narrative. i went home over winter break and began quizzing older relatives about the 1940's and the war and that sort of thing and came to find out that several of my relatives, including my father -- i'm not as old as you might think, but my father fought in the second world war. the important thing here is that my father's cousin who also fought in the war was stationed in the pacific. he shared with me letters that my father had written from europe back home, had pictures of my father in uniform. this sparked my imagination about the narrative of the black

experience in the 20th century. this began my journey toward graduate school, my doctorate in the book on ran off. -- and a book on randolph. pursueuggle he leads to an agenda of economic justice and social justice. bridges -- i don't want to say the divide between civil rights in a connect justice, but those things have not always been paired. the linkis central to that connects these kind of reform agendas. i began my dissertation with the title "fighting for identity." that sounded like a great title

to me. not so great now. ultimately, it became the basis for my book. book, i tried to detail for key things that i think are central about randolph, and his role in the modern civil rights movement. at struggle for social justice that really began to take shape in the first or second decade of the 20th century. theeally runs to the end of 21st century. some people might argue that it continues today in a different form or shape. points i try to lay out with randolph in my study of his and 1955 aren 1915 fourfold. first, look at randolph's record to engineer a program of mass action. i mean mass action in the

traditional form, where you gather a group of people to take some sort of concerted initiative to reform social processes, social circumstances that are oppressive to them. that's how i imagine mass action, and the way i sort of write about it. randolph really is at the forefront of this kind of social reform initiative. beginning with his march on washington movements that ultimately led to the creation of the fair employment practices commission. and the first of ministry to effort -- administrative effort to implement a kind of equal employment policy from the government.

this is a really important innovation for the civil rights movement. he becomes the basis for other mass action campaigns. certainly in 1960's. i don't want to suggest that randolph was the initiator of mass action. certainly you had things like don't buy were you can't work campaigns the go all the way back to the 1920's in new york. courier'surgh campaign can be viewed as a mass action strategy. these things existed. but what i do think randolph does in a really important way is take those kind of campaigns that, while very coherent in their articulation, are maybe less coherent in their application.

and bring them together with a particular constituent group. one of the becomes innovations that i see randolph pushing forward when it comes to mass action campaigns. linking a specific row graham with a specific group to lead it. with a specific group to lead it. for thaters called campaign, but not targeting a specific group to lead that campaign. local organizations organizing economic boycotts of stores that don't hire black employees, but mobilizing ad on constituent group to lead that effort. randolph, in my group, is innovative in that respect. taking a concept -- mass action, and giving it a concrete form in ways that hadn't existed before. and laying the groundwork for what will come later in the 50's

and the 60's. secondly, i try to point out the randolph is astute in how we understands the way in which minority groups can maneuver effectively in the context of american politics. before anyone else, randolph possessingthat when limited political leverage, the most effective place to apply that leverage is not the congress. is not the legislative body with multiple politicians all with their own agenda, but rather, the executive branch. where one person controls policy , whether he be the governor or the president. this becomes incredibly important as a vehicle for political and social change moving forward. prior to randolph's march on washington movement, which led to his pressuring of roosevelt and the creation of the fa pc,

most civil right groups, particularly the naacp look to congress for leadership. this was true with the antilynching campaign that was pursued through the 20's and 30's, they came to nothing. where you could always have a block of stuff -- southern congressman that would stall any potential legislation that they deemed it an f to their racial to their-- anathema racial politics. shifted the atmosphere towards democrats, when you had coalition of urban dwellers, people who moved to in the emerging labor movement, a more coherent labor movement, and minority groups like everton americans, democrats from the north are more responsive to the kind of little demands that someone like randolph began to make in the

1930's and 1940's. understanding how limited political leverage could be best applied to greatest effect was a really important thing. randolph understands before anyone else that in those circumstances, african-americans had the best chance of affecting public policy by pressuring the executive branch, not the legislative branch. this becomes the model that we see going forward. king certainly has relationships with various members of congress. but the most celebrated political relationship that king has with the kennedy brothers. the executive branch, whether it is the president or the attorney general. this becomes an important model for civil rights activism moving forward. from randolph in the 40's and onward. randolph understands theer than anyone else that notion of social justice, of genuine social justice, isn't

something tied necessarily to race or class. to the degree to which an individual is prepared to be a faithful citizen. to, forne is prepared instance, serve in the military, that person should be able to citizenfreely as a full , a full partner in a civil society. for randolph, civil rights should be based on the degree to which any person, man, woman, black, white, rather, is prepared to fulfill the duties of except the responsibility faithful, full citizenship. this becomes his conception of social justice. just somewhat different then the socialist conception that really focuses on a labor theory of value, meaning that workers are the one that produced.

and therefore are the one that should benefit from those products. if that makes any sense. but rather to say that citizenship is in bread by class or race, or gender. atizenship is bread by willingness to fulfill the duties of citizenship. he has this great line where he says that since all men are people and have contributed to civilization's progress come all should benefit from that progress. perception of civil rights, what constitutes general and -- genuine social justice. it's a more gala terrien humanism -- egalitarian humanism. then it is a straightforward progressive identity around class, race, or gender. something much more expansive.

lastly, randolph really has this important realization about the nature of what genuine civil rights looks like. it's not simply the right to vote or the right to serve in a desegregated military. it's also economic opportunity. the right to earn a living wage. the federal government should be in the business of securing not only civil rights, but economic opportunity. this was the full measure of what civil rights meant to randolph. of course, this becomes part of what he would propose to lyndon johnson in the 1960's around his freedom budget, which was a $15 billion -- that sounds small in today's currency. but a $15 billion budget industry -- initiative to combat poverty. thenis no really different kings poor people's movement in

the late 1960's. in all of these ways, i argue that randolph really does in fact provide important ,hilosophical organizational and actionable leadership for the satellites -- civil rights movement that is to come. we can talk more about the inlications of those ideas contemporary labor, race, and gender politics. i won't present randolph as a grand aggressive, because as mindy will point out, he is a man with flaws. [laughter] >> thanks. [laughter] >> i'm sorry. i didn't mean to put that onus on you. intent here -- my is to say, as i teach my

students, the great thing about history is that it shows us that even flawed people can do great things. whether it be randolph, abraham lincoln, king himself. john kennedy. all these people have their flaws. in an odd way, they are linked around the way in which gender plays out socially, although lincoln, perhaps, not so much. nonetheless, you can have flaws and still have tremendous impact on that only your immediate contemporary social circumstances, but also in the way people live in the future. that is some thing i try to teach my students. that is why someone like randolph, or king or others that we would talk about in memphis are so important. with that, i will probably pass the baton on to someone who can speak more coherently than i come up perhaps.

come back to some of these issues as we go forward with our discussion. this one.take good afternoon. mind being the critic. i do feel a little odd about that. i want to thank you for some of the things you said. i don't think i can tell you how i got to a. philip randolph. when i was a graduate student at howard university, i actually met gina caruthers tucker, the international secretary of the ladies auxiliary of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. i got to go to her house and get to know her for a few years before she passed. when she passed, i was even the responsibility to go and clean out her house. the house butng you left everything to the

leadership conference for civil rights. i got to go clean out her house, and within that, i found her autobiography. i found boxes of auxiliary material. i found all of the papers from her first husband. harlaners, who was a renaissance poet and activist, including unpublished manuscripts in all sorts of stuff. a very adjusting thing. when she died, she was 106 years old. and yet she still didn't slow down. when someone would try to walk her from place to place in her house, you do that old person shuffle, she said if you were going to go that slow, letting go by myself. that was always the way she approached life. another quick story about her. i think people may appreciate it very. had a fondness, a true liking, i would even say a love

for a red dress. in a redd to be buried dress. she was very clear about that, despite the fact that members of her presbyterian church thought this may not be the appropriate thing for an elderly woman to be buried in. but she got her way, of course. [laughter] that's how i came to start working on the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, and thinking about some of the things that mrs. tucker had talked about. some of the things that i also knew from other research that i had done. one of the things that i had focused on -- i have a more formal paper that i may or may not read all of it. i probably won't in the interest of time. one of the things that led to on women of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, was to think about the sexism of which randolph is been accused.

, what wehat sometimes now see in hindsight as sexism does not consider sexism in a prejudicial way at the time he was operating. or at least most of the many years he was operating. around forhe was many years after sexism was definitely part of the conversation. but in the 1920's, 30's, 40's, even into the 1950's and through the march on washington, the kind of sexism that he practiced , we believed in, i think stemmed from his view of manhood rights. thethat is the view that notion of equality -- some of this goes to what cornelius was saying. the notion of equality was to

measure how equal black men were to white men. how equal black women were to white women. this was not a competitive kind of thing. kind of sex segregated equality, if you don't mind me calling at that. it is a different model of working on different issues. in approaching different issues. of course, yes, it reinforced male privilege. of course, it stunted women's potential for leadership. particularly as leaders of men. it would have been something that was anathema to everyone in that time. but there is another part of that. and that is where it gets into what i call the politics of respectability. i have been calling this for quite a while. by that, i mean to have women thingsa role or to do that seem to defy societies accepted role of women.

undermined claims for civil rights. to go out ton had work, but white women did not, then what you are doing is creating a situation of inequality are black women vis-à-vis white women. this politics of perspective billet was not even -- i just talked about work, but that's not really where it is. with wearingto do a red dress or not, frankly. these are the kinds of things that i spent some time looking at. when we talk about sexism and civil rights and political representation in that time, i think that the other way to think about this in terms of randolph -- you said it too, i know you could call randolph all sorts of things based on his political philosophy.

his social outlook, his goals, his beliefs. i like to think of him as an organizer. i think approaching him as somebody who was in some ways the consummate political organizer, this gives us a different view of the way he organized movements, the way he approached the participation of women in those movements. and basically, the way that women themselves viewed him and their role in the movement. what he thought was that despite all his many victories, and fewer spectacular failures -- we can't forget those. i don't think that is criticizing, it's true. as he said, he failed to recognize women, and he refused to support efforts that would abolish sex to termination in the workplace. he did not support the equal -- sex is termination in the workplace. he did not support the equal rights movement. he did not support equal pay for

women. most people in the labor movement did not. these are some of the things you can criticize him for his political or policy stances. but there is another way of looking at what he did. think about the way he displayed women in the movement. -- deployed women in the movement. women were either very traditionally mothers, teachers, or wives. that's one less then the bbb did boys has. those three roles with the most important one. sexism, but itf didn't mean they couldn't participate. women could raise money.

they got him into communities to couldn't otherwise get involved in. they got together grassroots supporters. a push through all of the office grunt work. one of the things that people tend to forget about with -- thereg a campaign is a labor-intensive part to doing that. anyone who knows the getting out the vote means going from door to door. this was before computers. sometimes before mimeograph machines. you are typing all those letters. you are making telephone calls. you are sending telegrams. sometimes you literally go door-to-door. and outd of organizing, organizing the opposition, doesn't depend on charismatic men. it does, but it doesn't. what it depends on is a massive volunteers. these were almost all women, who perform those tasks to produce

the monster rallies of the march on washington movement, who produced all these activities, this mass organizing. the mass action that cornelius refers to. this is not sending that was exclusive to randolph. i think what we now call civic engagement was in fact, at the time, mostly women's work. difference thing then what we think of a civil engagement in the twice for century. there is a habit of refusing to women'se -- acknowledge involvement in modern political activism. one of the ways this comes out then, is to think about the ways -- what happens when that sexism comes to the floor. allen baker is known for the criticism that she made in the

late 1950's. she started criticizing some of this much earlier when she worked with randolph in the 30's. they murray, the reverend, lawyer, the great activist, was also one of randolph's go to jay's. .he -- protéges she going to the word jane crow to describe sex determination. will talk about later, all privately questioned the sexism that went on during the 1940's in organizing the march on washington movement, and organizing the national pc, it for permanent fe was not really until the march on washington though, until 1963, that the debate about male privilege became a public one. it was then that jane crow had to go. eas,as then that the pink t

typeotion of having women the memos and run mimeograph machines and make the coffee was questioned. we can see this kind of deployment of women in these capacities, of wife, teacher, mother, throughout randolph's career. when we look at the ladies auxiliary and the women's economic council became before them with the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, we are really talking about the wives of pullman workers who were there putting together. they had this role of brain together other women, -- bringing together other women, but also to teach their men how important mass organization was. there was later emphasis on teaching children, but for the most part this was women's work. i think randolph recognized that unless you had a united front, you would not win. i think that is important. the gender division of labor, despite randolph's belief in it -- he also clearly rejected the

notion held by other black leaders that women's public activism would take away from their respectability. he did challenge sexism in the sense that he didn't say you have to stay home. he said you could do these things, these come down to the office and help make these phone calls. this is fine work for you to do, where as in other campaigns, there was a decided effort that women didn't need to be there. this is him into really think about. he challenged it by giving women this opportunity to do it. because of this, there were women who had full-time, though temporary, movement jobs. in times when few people dead. this provided training for leadership roles. there were at least a dozen

african-american women who worked for him who became powerful social justice advocates in their own right. ella baker was somebody he worked with in the 1930's. later on, she became the genius behind the student nonviolence forbidding committee. organized mass protests and helped to found the national organization for women. , the long-running president of the national council of negro women worked with randolph. the executive secretary of the committee for permanent fe pc, and later, part of the habitant -- cabinet of new york city robert wagner. there was the leader of united federation of teachers. there was the polly myers, the secretary of the march on washington movement. also talk a, who was not only the president -- tucker

, who was not only the president but involved in the naacp. by being able to participate, women did learn this leadership. did become activists in their own right. then we get to the march on washington. the march for jobs, peace, and freedom. 83 march.he i always at peace and there, and that's not right for the 63 march. whoas a. philip randolph decided in the december of 1962, they wanted to mark the centenary of the emancipation proclamation. but the momentum for that, and the endorsement and support for that march that would come in august of 63 burst into overtime

in the fateful event of that summer. the children's march in birmingham, alabama that ended with police dogs and fire hoses, and the assassination of men drivers. -- men drivers. president kennedy had to respond to these events. famously felled -- held a televised address where he announced his intention to send a civil rights bill to the congress. king in turn responded, calling for massive militant, monumental citizens on congress that would ensure its passage. kings call for massive acts of disabled is obedience -- civil disobedience turned into a peaceful march on washington. this is the civil rights movement narrative of the march on washington that we know. there is a subplot that i want to draw attention to.

i go back to kennedy. the beginning of his administration, showed more interest in women's issues than he did on issues of racial dissemination. he established a federal commission of the status of women, to which he appointed eleanor roosevelt. dorothy height was one of the members of that commission as well. the only african-american on that commission. the charge of that commission issue amerely to statement supporting equality of opportunity, but instead to suggest affirmative steps to see that the doors are really opening for training, selection, advancement, and equal pay for women. of course, as i mentioned, equal pay legislation was controversial. randolph did not support it because he thought, like other labor leaders, that if women were given equal pay, that would allow employers to drop the wages of men.

that was overcome, and the act prevailed. kennedy signed that bill into 10, 1963.e the next day, the birmingham police commissioner of public safety let loose those dogs and fire hoses. fired his shotgun multiple times, murdering the leader of the mississippi naacp. , there was this an six --alition of the big an uneasy coalition of the big six civil rights groups. they had less than six weeks to bring 2000 full buses as well as planes, trains, and automobiles to the district of columbia for a single day. this was going to be one day in and out. at the march headquarters in assignedobs and been

to volunteers. not his sixth aggregate it as you might imagine. -- not as sex segregated as you might imagine. one of the people he brought on directed the national committee from 1943 to 1946. she was the second deputy director. after thes and change postponed 41 march, african-americans and white women had begun to organize this for themselves, to protest their exclusion from positions of power and recognition of issues of concern to women. height recalled that the march was the vital awakening of the women's movement. were shocked when weston said there was no need to include a woman's be great the march because women were part of all the groups come and represented at the polls, and represented at the podium. [laughter]

in heights opinion, this pronouncement made clear that men don't understand or see their position as patriarchal or patronizing. women inppy to include the human family, but there was no question as to who headed the household. for organizers, women were artistic performers who only female voices they wanted to hear was marian anderson, odetta, joan baez, and mahalia jackson. actress lena horne was to be seen, but not heard. angry by this exclusion, height called on other african-american women to protest. supporters thought that including women would take the focus off race. yet as height pointed out, though the vast majority of civil rights leaders nationally and locally were male, most of the audience were largely comprised of women. at the pain, who goes way back

is a daughter of a pullman porter herself. and a member of the chicago mass rally for the march on washington movement. called randolph out as sexism. by 1963, she was a distinguished journalist and only the second african-american woman to be admitted to the white house press corps. she probably chided randolph for failing to include a single woman speaker. she wrote that in light of the role women have played in the struggle for freedom, in light of the extra burdens they have carried, it is incredible that as aman should appear speaker. she suggested that august 28 be named rosa parks day, in order to recognize her contribution to the movement. that a womanght should be one of the leaders of one of the marshes.

after all, whitney young was part of the big six group, but the urban league had done almost nothing for the southern freedom movement. had and issuedey several programs and funded many more, including 10 educational and recreational centers for black children imprints williams -- in prince william county virginia. murray, another randolph protége, and now a law professor at yale, so it as another case of jane crow. -- saw it as another case of jane crow. this omission was deliberate. he called out randolph, when chose to address the national press club, an organization that excluded female journalists in

the days before the march. no relation to being sent to the balcony and sent to the back of the bus. he failed to see that he was supporting the violation of the very principles for which he was fighting. the human rights that are indivisible. liketness randolph acting a member of the entrenched power group was a reminder of women's inequality. the antipathy that randolph showed proved to be an immovable force. nothing that one said or did broke that impasse. henchmen had taken a few lessons, and provided pressure politics of her own. when she wrote a memo to randolph asking that women be included, he of course, ignored it. he didn't sand thing about it. so then she sent it to the other big six liters. -- leaders. she also went up and raise

$40,000 to pay for it. $14,000 to pay for it. it was then that randolph agreed to conduct a tribute to women, and introduced the woman's platform. the resulting 142 words speech -- very long. theas the tweet version of march. praises ofth sojourner truth and harriet tubman, in a speech that sounded very similar to a 1937 address that randolph gave to the ladies auxiliary, in which he concluded the brotherhood is the boss. [laughter] on that august day, and a woman gave a speech of her own. the platform had rosa parks, and the widowed mrs. eberle. josephine baker arrived from france, but when lena horne tried to interest a television

interest -- and interviewing rosa parks, she was sent back to her hotel room. the national council women convened in washington. height thought the focus on that mosttion affected women, decent housing, child care, schooling, and employment. the council quickly went into action. -- theyrst program already had all these other things going on. it's what became known as wednesdays in mississippi. in october of that year, holly murray went -- polly murray went and spoke about the two decades of jane crow treatment by blackmail leaders. wastribute appeasement evident for the a tendency to assign women to a secondary,

ornamental, or honor roll. for alls instead partnership that could attack sextus rumination -- sex discrimination. differencest these made all women subordinate to men. it was crystal clear that the fight against discrimination is of sex had to be fought simultaneously with the civil rights struggle. 50 years later, that partnership is still largely unrealized. murray, height, and other african-american women who thought -- who fought against sextus rumination -- sex discrimination had more success working with other organizations. they passed the civil rights act of 1954. discrimination

prohibition. there is a whole story behind that. that did happen, and that extended more than the practices commission did. they never included a sex discrimination part. more often, however, black women have found that they have not had the massive to engage in the pressure politics that mail civil rights leaders had in order to force that women's issues be addressed. leaders may claim to have binders full of women, but when black women rally against sexism, and called for the inclusion of black girls in presidential initiatives, or when they ask for the appointment of black women to policymaking administrative positions, they are criticized still for being unnecessarily divisive. continue toican men lead civil rights organizations, even into the 21st century.

that glass ceiling, that jane crow, remains firmly in place. thank you. [applause] for a make it very hard federal policy [indiscernible] washington.s sondra -- sandra washington . i work for the national park service. instead of talking about what i do right now, i will tell you about what i have done in the past. when it came to the national park service, i had worked for a state department of natural resources, and i thought that my highest and best career choice could be as either a field ecologist counting endangered sedges, or as a forrester, measuring timber. those were the things i studied in school. i thought the people were

interesting, but not essential. [laughter] it's not unusual for a science geek to go in that direction. but i came to the national park service, and i had a degree in urban regional planning. they said you are going to do the community outreach arm of the national park service. for those that don't know, we have a community outreach arm that does interesting things outside of national parks. i was challenged to consider people a lot more interesting than i might have thought otherwise. the other part of my job at the beginning was to look at places for their potential to become national parks. person, a planner who worked on special resource studies, and got a chance to really get in and learn stories that i didn't know about. it really fostered a great love of history. the only other time i have been to the associations meeting was

a lifetime ago in kansas city. i went and presented a paper on nicodemus, an all-black community in western kansas. that study,inished but it was prior to the legislation passing to create a nationally historic site from the committee. the best thing about that meeting was that i met captain anderson, a tuskegee airmen who actually taught the men to fly. it was great. i got to spend an afternoon with him. that was wonderful. i'm going to talk a little bit about the national park service's involvement in pullman. as allen had said, pullman is a community, a town on the south side of town. it was separate. later it was brought into the city of chicago. the national park service has been involved or interested in

pullman sense 1971. just ahead of that, we authored a nomination for the entire neighborhood, both the residences and the industrial core, the factory core, as a national historic landmark. it is a historic district, recognized by the national park service. with that designation comes some benefits. some encouragement for preservation. but no absolute preservation mandate by the federal government to step in and make certain things get preserved. in 1997, national park service undertook a labor theme to study, and part of that labor looking at took pullman as a potential national park. this is where i had my first introduction to pullman. it also suggested that the nhl nomination for pullman be revised to expand it the theme

this or ideas they found nationally significant there. the assessment of the park came clock towers the and administration building was burning. we started to look at it. the building burned down. the south end of the factory was completed demolished. the clock tower, most of it fell on the north factory wing, not as badly. i got to see the site once before the burn area the fire, the arson. and then a number of times afterward. in doing that assessment, we realize there was a strong core of support of the state and city level. we didn't see a particular role for the part service. national park service. had said they were going to reconstruct. all the neighborhood groups were very focused. we only saw one place for us to be. we said that one place is fairly small. it is kind of a very expensive. we have such a positive group of people here. andre going to step away

support them in other ways. but we won't look for designation or work towards that. the -- i have had been speaking with a very young congressman who just got elected to office. jackson junior. i said you could ask us to do a special resource study, a formal special research study. we are not allowed to do that unless we get congressional requests through legislation. at the time, he said he didn't want to spend his political chits in that way. he was very new. and i understand it don't walk in and say i think a national park, which sort of look like grady to some people, as a primary issue when there is something much more important -- probably jobs and economy. earlier in the late 90's, earlier 2000, and then stepped away. there has been a groundswell of interest in pullman.

out a3, we put reconnaissance survey of pullman. we have been asked by much more senior congressman jackson senators,ong with two durbin and kirk from illinois, if we would please do a reconnaissance survey. it's a very small study. not the same intensity we would do for a special resource study, but we look at the same criteria. the criteria for national significance. would be a suitable place for a national park, and whether or not it is feasible. we put out the reconnaissance survey, and we basically confirmed that pullman is nationally significant. all of the themes and stories of pullman are nationally significant. we also saw that the original nomination form for it was weak. it is weak in one particular area. that is the story of the pullman porters.

they spend a lot of time talking talkin the urban design of the community. he pulled himself up by his bootstraps, he is a mantra for newer, he's very inventive. about labor, much not at all about the pullman porters. there has been a lot of attention on pullman as of late. in january of this last year, senator durbin, senator kirk, and commerce when kelly all submitted legislation on the same day to create a pullman national historical park. then, there is been more interest in the executive branch of government. director of the park service, secretary of the interior are both interested. interested that they said your reconnaissance survey was never supposed to reach a definitive conclusion on any of the criteria.

we don't have the money or the time to do that. but you did confirm its national significance. you said it is probable he suitable. but you never got in to see the building because of time constraints. we want you to spend some time now assessing the feasibility of the pullman historic district as a national park. doings what i have been this summer. i spent my summer in chicago, added libraries, talking to lots and lots of people. about whether or not this could be feasible. talking to lots of different organizations, reaching out to different groups of people and saying if this were a national there are a lot of what if questions. we took the time in august to do a public meeting. the community of pullman, i know that lee aaron will talk a little bit about that.

i can tell you there are two pathways to becoming a national park. pathway,a legislative and congressman kelly and both senators durbin and kirk have initiated that. they are very interested. they are trying to put that through congress. congresswoman kelly has done a magnificent job in lining up almost 40 cosponsors for her -- bipartisan,se which is a feat in and of itself. themselves, one is a democrat, what is a republican, that the bipartisan effort in the senate. the other way to do it is by executive action. if the director and secretary support or think it is interesting and would be valuable to have a national park in a place, they can write a memo. the director writes the secretary, the secretary can write her boss. and suggest that the president use the antiquities act to confirm or designate a national

park or national monument. in this case, at pullman. that has not yet happened. when the director was in chicago, and he told all the folks at the meeting that we are still working on feasibility, he made a point of looking at me and my staff to understand that i still had work to do. [laughter] i newly done with my assessment -- i am newly done with my assessment, and have drafted what i think the director should tell the secretary, and what the secretary should tell her boss. but it hasn't as of yet done anything. but maybe it will. i certainly hope that at some point in the near future, something happens. ask, why is the park service interested in pullman, and why now? we have a lot of other places that we already manage and care for. the budget doesn't look so great. we are no different than the rest of the federal government,

and all of the services it tries to provide for the united states. i'm going to tell you a very short story. i'm going to try and channel the director. passionate about the responsibility the park service has to telling the whole story of america. 98 years ago, congress created the national park service, and we were charged with the responsibility of managing those places that rejuvenate us. the natural, cultural, and historical artifacts that reflect thend multiplicity of american heritage. congress said those places should be preserved for future generations to enjoy and learn from. four years ago, our director, john jarvis, challenged us with a call to action. he charged us to reach back to our initial charge, and then

reach forward to put that ideal and the practice for the 21st century. to look fors opportunities to work outside of park boundaries. to tackle broad landscape conservation and climate change. to tell a told stories and bring neglected history to the forefront. in short, director jarvis charged us to put into practice our mission to reflect the multiplicity of american heritage. pullman gives us that opportunity. the pullman palace car company and its model town are indisputably nationally significant for many reasons. it is a well preserved example of 19th century urban planning and architecture. i told you i have a degree in urban regional planning. i do appreciate that. company and its workers played large roles in the history of labor and manufacturing and transportation in the united states. too are also important.

but it is the brotherhood of sleeping car porters which is an important chapter in the history, and in the civil rights movement, it has captured the attention that only of the director but many of the people who worked for the park service. i know it has captured the attention of hundreds of people in the pullman neighborhood and around the country. i want to repeat something you said, dr. bynum. you said that a. philip randolph had a different spin. he didn't take the socialist view. he said that all contribute, all benefit. and the national park service looks at our mission that same way. that we look at the contributions of all of america, and we want to make certain that all of america benefits from those places that we care for. [applause]

>> good afternoon. am lee at, ia m -- i aaron foley. only a quick 90 minute flight for those of you who want to go out to chicago. i want to start out by saying as was mentioned earlier, many african-americans in the congress20% or look to for leadership. that leadership was regarding the protection of african americans across the country. post-slavery, and into this jim crow and jane crow society that existed. today, we continue looking to congress for leadership. this leadership takes the form

of preserving those stories of the fight for civil rights in this country. for the fights of those protections. for the fight to preserve our own history as a country. and that history includes of course, those african american stories. congress is from for them to continue to take the america'slity of cultural heritage, and that is needed to increase funding and national parks of a can stay open as educational institutions. as places of employment for tens of thousands of park rangers and personnel, who are the first people on the ground to answer those questions about what it was like for a. philip randolph to organize the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. these are the things we have to continue looking at as we talk

about preserving african-american history, as we talk about preserving our cultural identity. we looked at congress for leadership in acquiring those properties that tell the stories. we look towards congress to continue being the place where they take the actions to preserve the stories. what sandra, and mentioned, our 401 beautiful national park sites. for those of you that have these yellow buttons on, that says 402.an -- pullaman that is the campaign to establish pullman that tell such wonderful stories from the late 19th century urban planning and architecture, and the american industrial revolution, is to add those in as america's 402nd

park. and that's where the national parks conservation association was coming in. it was founded to become the advocate specifically for national parks. places that were called national parks before the national park service was created. but there was not a uniform body that would be able to preserve and protect, and tell those stories of national parks until the national park service was created in 1916 by the organic act. service, or park national parks conservation association has nearly one member -- one million members across the country. we engage with them to make sure that congress is doing their job in protecting our national parks. that is not an easy task. npca advocates for diversifying our national parks. national parks are not just yellowstone or yosemite, or the

grand canyon. national parks are the statue of liberty manual -- national monument. there are civil war battlefields, some of which in tennessee where we are now. they are martin luther king's neighborhood in atlanta, georgia. a historical park that tells the story of milgram's across central massachusetts. those are the national parks. national parks tell the story of our national and cultural heritage. that is what we have to talk about, and we have to make sure we continue to diversify our national parks. npca plays is continuing the conversation about what it means to be an urban national park. we talk about those great western landscape parks like yosemite, yellowstone, and the grand canyon. but what about places in urban communities? how do we tell the stories that are in urban communities, and

how we generate access to get people their first national park experience without having to travel thousands of miles out west? what happens when there is a national park in someone's very own backyard, and they can have their first experience in opening their eyes and world up to the magnificent wonders that exist in this country? pullman is a great example of that. the history of pullman is told as dr. bynum and dr. chateauvert ,nd sandra has talked about pullman is a place that example five is the stories. -- exemplifies those stories. economic recession that took place between 1893 and 1994. there is the formation of labor day soon after the pullman strikes. less than 40 years later, you have this conversation amongst the is 10,000 men across the

country. and they say what about us? there are large labor groups that have been formed after the pullman strikes that are largely white. in form andlithic size come across the country. you have all of these thousands pullman --laves who there are diverse opinions about his role in history, whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. i don't know if we can say george pullman was a good guy, or a bad guy. we can say he was an american. he was an industrialist. that is his role in our history. i circle back before i continue down the labor history part of this. george pullman. we talk about the site on the southside of chicago. in 1879, george pullman purchased 18 acres of land, 14 miles south of downtown chicago. it was the heart of chicago even then.

to build his manufacturing town and the pullman palace car company. of all those thousands pullman palace sleeping cars that crisscrossed the country, the vast majority of them were manufactured in chicago. that town was created in a city where less than 30 years later, upton sinclair would refer to it as "the jungle" for the working conditions of the people in chicago. george pullman said no. i want my company to be a modern company. i want my company to manufacture the best products in the coountry and we can take care of our employees at the same time. he built it on the southside of chicago. less than a year later, people were moving in. the workers lived with the managers. the managers live the near the executives.

it was one happy place, the happiest town in the world. [laughter] for about three years. after that, the paternalistic nature of george pullman begins to take effect. it had arctic been there since he built homes for his children at that point. it begins to affect people. the economic recession happens and you have george pullman not doing anything to help the people of his town. george pullman is the landlord of the place where you live. he is the boss where you work. he owns the church in which he wants you to worship with other denominations and other faiths. people got really fed up really quickly. they began to organize. get that organization, you the formation of the american railway union.

stories are the convergence of labor and civil rights and has a very unique role in american history. --t convergence of labor is labor and civil rights also creates a divergence from the mainly-white union's to questions about the americans across the country that are working a sleeping car porters and say, what about us? we were 12 hour days on trays going from chicago to new orleans and stopping in memphis. you begin to have conversations about what is the role of the african-americans in the union? we recognize that labor does not have the strongest initial support, or initial juxtaposition with civil rights. it was not its earliest supporter.

an interesting story that is largely untold within the national park system. we are presented an opportunity to enhance our national parks. enhancing our national parks means that with those stories being told, we can better understand the history of america. we can better understand what has happened, what has gone wrong. we can't shy away from the fact that bad things have happened in the country. it is important for these stories to be told. , evaluatingntioned what are the potential sites that we have in mind across the country that have the national significance to be preserved within the national park system? one of the things that i find most interesting, especially my job day today is i basically live in pullman. it is not my official residence.

i traveled there almost every day. i am there, organizing the community. we have built tremendous support for pullman. there is an understanding, though, that national parks are not the first things on people's minds. that is a recognition. but at a conference such as the alash,, we talk about how we can better preserve until those stories. we do not just want to put the history of african americans in a museum. we want those stories told for generationsture to understand, dissect, and use them as educational opportunities for more subjects to be unfolded. that is one of the values of continuing to diversify national parks. it also means that the national park service has a presence in urban communities where they are

not normally seen. how many of us daily interact with someone wearing green? those are the smiling faces that when you walk into a national park. they are great people and they do their job very well. as memphis where there are no national park sites, we have a very strong opportunity to be able to tell those stories and that would be almost saying that there is nothing nationally significant in memphis. we know that is not true, even ater you step out the plane the airport, you enter the city, you see the jazz sills. those are all nationally significant. ofther important part diversifying our national parks, getting away from the western arks, telling our

stories in the access is the undisputed economic impacts that national parks have across the country. they generate about $30 billion in economic activity annually. where does that money go? it goes to the communities in which the parks are located. those communities around yellowstone are dependent on that national park. yosemitenities around are dependent on the national park. for places like pullman, situated on the southside of chicago, situated around the most challenging neighborhoods, it creates a great opportunity to be able to have the conversation with new generations were supposed to be the advocates for national parks to say, do you want to be a forrester? out into places where you have never been before

and explore opportunities you have never seen? you have never seen a park ranger walking down michigan avenue in chicago. we have an opportunity to make that happen through pullman. i'm sure that we will get through more as we could use conversation, so i will yield. excited talking about pullman, and i will yield to alex. [applause] you for some good presentations. i appreciate the dialogue and discussion. i just want to take my prerogative as moderator of this ask questions of our colleagues. i'm struck by the notion of building blocks when you talk about the american civil rights movement. the march on washington might have been thought up with a quick timeline to make it happen, but it was part of the progression of events. it was the first idea of a march

on washington in 1941. there were all sorts of movements and lawsuits and victories and setbacks that set the stage for that sort of thing. dr. bynum, i wanted to ask if you could talk us through executive order 8802 and the significance of that in terms of launching us towards the fair practices commission and ultimately to published civil rights victories. >> i don't know that i could do that. [laughter] i might be able to tell a few engaging stories about it. for those of you who don't know, what alan is referencing in the numbers 8802 is the executive order that franklin delano roosevelt signed that created .he fair practices committee he issued that executive order as a direct result of his concern about the implications

of randolph's march on washington movement bringing 10,000 african-americans to the nation's capital, particularly at eight time of real international strife. this is the era of the second world war. his concern was about the potential for racial violence in the nation's capital. halteeling compelled to the potential protest, he ultimately capitulates to some of randolph's demands. multipledemanded things, one of which was a desegregated military. that did not happen. that happens 10 years later, thereabouts, or 15 years later. nonetheless, he does feel compelled to take some course of randolph'sesponse to protest initiative. there are so many stories to tell about the executive order.

one of the stories that is commonly discussed in a variety of books on randolph marching on washington in this era deals with randolph's particular elocution. randolph, as a child, was very much a shakespeare lover. food, you arelike a foodie. i don't know if you are shakespearean -- whatever. he was very much into shakespeare. he performed in shakespearean plays as a kid and developed , bass voicetarian that had a precise elocution. i don't do imitation so i won't bother to try. at one point, roosevelt says to

randolph after a particularly challenging discussion where roosevelt is trying to convince randolph to pull things back and randolph is refusing, he says to randolph, when did you graduate from harvard? randolph would always drop his a's and r's. that was this notion randolph had this elaborate elocution, i think, was needling roosevelt at the time and he decided to try to call randolph out on it. the building blocks that you talk about here are quite important because several things emerge from this executive order. --lays the groundwork certainly, the elc, but also in the way the u.s. military desegregated. the sameegregated in

way by roosevelt's successor, truman. ed segregates the military on ordersis of an executive based on pressure brought by a. phillip randolph. there is a building block quality here that i think you're right to point out. these types of lessons are important going forward because they really do set the tone for how we begin to see a deliberate kind of pressure politics played by african-americans in general, but the civil rights movement in particular. >> i would take it back not just to 8802, which was the result of the activism, but when i teach my course on the civil rights movement, i always start with the call to march on washington issued in 1941. there are four points that

randolph articulated. one was the end of discrimination, particularly in war industries. two was military desegregation. three was dissipation in politics. four was the end of colonialism in the rest of the world. the way that the movement came about, it was also the first time that nonviolent political andon was being called for view is whatndhian was meant when being called for. 1941 callsok at the to march on washington, that to me is the outline of the entire civil rights movement that comes afterward. especially, some of the things that we are finally now beginning to -- not finally, but

becoming more and more understood are those calls to end colonialism, those calls to think about what electoral to think about these other kinds of things. to me, that call to march, even though the march itself was postponed, the idea was outlined in that call. that is actually a better place -- iart the civil rights also point out that the call does not include anything about school desegregation. those people who want to say that the civil rights movement began with brown and focus on education -- yeah, that is true. that is one way of looking at it. even brown began much earlier than that as well. there are these different strains, different threads within the movement. i think randolph definitely had this larger vision of what the platform was going to look like. >> i have a question about that. go ahead. >> you could actually extend

this discussion even further if you look at the various points that she points out. greatas been the last campaign for unfettered and nondiscriminatory military service? first it was gender, but it has also become sexuality, orientation. this very same kind of platform we see extended to things like military service, but i also , the about employment women's movement in general, the whole way in which you see, as i groupsrlier, minority looking to operate in the context of interest in politics. hat yieldsign tg this executive order becomes the template that all groups going

forward look to operationalize. this is one of the things that is so incredibly potent about this particular moment. it sets the tone for how modern contemporary politics is played. think about how you vote today. think about how we as a nation vote today and you can see the seeds of that very electoral counting that every politician does played out in this particular instance. it is exactly why roosevelt decided to assign the executive order. he was concerned about losing his base support among african-americans in the north and other groups in cities across the country. these are incredibly potent as wes to think about continue to think about the civil rights movement. and how we live politically today. if the 1941 march on washington had gone ahead, it

would have been smaller, but would it have been more radical than the 1963 version and what would have been the implication for that and the civil rights movement for the country? oni will answer that based tucker, who was the person who headed up most of the washington organizing. i know that from what she wrote. -- of the things that i had i argue with a lot of people. people said they were not really ever planning on marching. that has often been a charged segue. ms. tucker'shrough matera, she was calling churches in places where people could stay overnight. workwas mass organizing that they were definitely engaged in. it is that's

pacific and the level of detail in the white house knew what was going on. they had not been organizing to -- if theyse people had not been organizing to receive these people, the white house would not have responded. as far as radicalism, i think it would have been shown in the fact it was a march of so many highlyf color in a segregated, already overburdened town where there was very little and i think the radicalism would have been in the present. maybe not in the political agenda, but the fact that maybe you had had 50,000 people showing were 20,000 people showing up marching down pennsylvania avenue, that would have been a show unlike anything anyone was prepared to see.

especially coming, granted, 16 years after the planned march down pennsylvania avenue, nonetheless, it was a march that would have backed the racial andtics that came out of it possible violence is what the white house also feared, particularly at a time where u.s. propaganda was about democracy. we were fighting for democracy and we believe in democracy and to oppose, the counterproposal to an area nation. not just ingoing on europe, but the asian theaters. >> i think that is true in all respects. i had not thought about the hypothetical -- what would have been the implications are consequences had the march gone on. it is a little hard to play that out because on the one hand, you

about our optimistic national ability to live up to the best principles of democracy and freedom. you have a long history that shows our shortcomings in that respect. i struggled to come up with a concrete answer to that other to at that i think you can look what the roosevelt administration does to forestall it. toy go to great links to try dissuade randolph from following through on this thread. threat without making any kind of concession, but they failed to move him.

the roosevelt administration felt it had to do something to prevent this massive demonstration of people of color in the nation's capital at a time of war where they were deathly concerned about race war breaking out in the nation's capital. whether you credit randolph's threat or not, the white house was concerned enough to do something about it. i am a historian. i can write some fantasy. [laughter] , i don'tle say i have know if you have read the critics of my books. i will stick with the facts that i know and the fact is that we do get an executive order issued president that does important work in respect to economic justice and

nondiscrimination. questionsgoing to get from the audience in a moment. if you have any, and you can queue up at the microphone. to sandrago washington from the park service next. the park service is adept at attacking tough history and tough issues. potential pullman site, we have tough history. we have an 1894 strike that is vitally oppressed. -- violently oppressed. we have the issue of inequality that has the struggle for over a decade before they can get a collective bargaining agreement. how does the park service get to tell the stories and what is the vision of the agency for telling them correctly so it is all inclusive with that interpretation? >> very good question.

i would say that we are getting much better at telling history, about telling the weaknesses of the country, which in some odd way our strengths. the fact that we can have conversations about the failures of democracy and still remain a democracy is a good thing. we have history in talking about tough stories. as the say in so much breaking of the strike at the was an factory in 1894 call for the national guard. federal troops came in to break that strike. we also tell a story where the national guard came into little rock to uphold the rights of the students to attend a central high school. that is a national park where we tell those stories and where we have an opportunity to ofonstrate the great amount

compassionate takes for reconciliation. i don't know if you're familiar with the photographs that came , thef that story desegregation of central high school, but you have a liver get -- you have elizabeth eckert, she was very young, the youngest of the students, carrying her day,, is the first and she did not get the message to meet at mrs. bates' home so she arrives on the public bus and walks down the street to go to school instead of going in the station wagon with the rest of the students. she is heckled and jeered. i am so sorry, i think her name is miss faye. i cannot remember her name. there is a white girl behind her yelling and pointing in her back

and you can almost see the spittle pointing up. the two of them come on a review of basis to the national park and have conversations about that moment. they talk about being in that moment and what it took to come around and reconcile with each and to be very thoughtful and conscientious about her apology. the rangers do not tell the story. but we do is facilitate the story being told by the participants who lived it. in places where we are talking about slavery, we do not have participants but we facilitate a conversation about slavery. we open the door and invite folks to understand what the was.ty of slavery we try not to gloss over the

facts we know. we try to tell it in the places that happen or it the biggest struggle, and i think we have had a fair amount of success, maybe even a lot of success in commemorating the 150th anniversary of the civil war and not making a celebration out of it, but talking about the reality of slavery and talking about that it was the genesis for the civil war. let's not gloss over the other things. let's talk about the realities of that. within our own agency, it was a bit of a battle to talk about this not being just a commemoration of the civil war, but talking about the civil war and civil rights, how you , probably dothere most two dynamic and important pieces of our history. i think that we do a pretty good job of tackling the tough things. labor is not an area that we talk very much now.

we do not have many sites were we talk about labor. we talk about industry. in the a small site upper peninsula of the upper peninsula of michigan. it is very far away. it is the history of copper mining. there are some labor stories there, but it is more about industry in mining and not as much about labor. we mostly talk about industry of textiles. nor, should an ho it ever come to pass, to talk about labor at pullman. >> you are representing the national parks conservation organization, but you are also our token millennial. i wanted to ask you, it is part of our mission and vision to protect and enhance the america national park system for current and future generations.

as a leader in the millennial generation, what do you think the pullman story and national parks generally have for your generation that is so important? thank you for a technology -- four acknowledging the place of the millennial's. i have not formally excepted that role, but -- [laughter] national parks are concerned, i believe the challenge that exist is engaging millennial's. millennial's being those people orthe range of at 30 or so, people born in the early 1980's and downward, or upward. how do we make these places interesting? how do we make the history come to life so millennials will

be engaged? does that mean you have amphone app that tells the stories? it might be. those are conversations that have to happen and those are conversations that have to take place. one of the debates i have regularly with people i interact with about cell phone usage and national parks. one side is heavily on one side presentother is sort of , and they have an opinion about it, but until you get out to the national parks, until you have a whoration of millennials to the national parks and they realize, oh my gosh, my cell phone does not work, you can have the conversation that, it might be

important for me, as a millennial, to have the technology to use the phone and when i get to the middle of the woods and document the amount of butterflies that you see. if you are unable to do that, you might be missing out on a valuable opportunity for many folks that use technology as a learning tool. national parks, to answer your question, have opportunities that have yet to be explored for millennials. i think the most important part is that millennials will be at the table when decisions are being made. serviceational park also manages millions of acres of wilderness. we can almost redefined wilderness for millennials, because it is not about going someplace far away, it is about going someplace out of cell coverage. [laughter] >> we can just stay away from

those areas, right? let's see if we have any questions from audience members. come on up and let's make sure the microphone is on. it looks like we have a red light there. on? david, city of rockland. ry different site for pose for the pullman site. i have been working protection ever since. i hope it works out. i love the mention of cell phones. to a new generation, our students do not have land lines. they have never seen their name and a phonebook. that was like, you made it back in the old days. it is not too much older than them. i have never written a train other than an amtrak from

philadelphia to new york. that is an important part of our culture heller tage -- cultural heritage that may be lost. i've a question about the biography. i have been working on it and intellectual biography of randolph, because unlike a lot of other male african-american leaders, he did not leave us with an autobiography. he was busy doing stuff. he was getting stuff done. i was so troubled. we went through more than 3000 documents, organized into his thoughts on internationalism and world war ii, and i thought the other day that i don't know anything about randolph. those moments were malcolm x describes the look of his mother's dress when he is cooking. he loved his wife and called her buddy, but it is like, we lived

in the same building, we had good politics, and we were married for almost a year's. what charmed him? what was his favorite food? was there an expression or a saying? can we put some flesh on the bones of randolph? we know about him as a public figure, but as a man, can you share any anecdotes you might be able to -- you share any anecdotes that might not make it into the print? >> i will try. i'm working on a paper now that i hope will be my last randolph before moving on to something else where i am trying to explain a couple of things. about being a supporter for the women's's right to vote and is very sanger andh margaret

birth-control movement. comes out things that of this examination that i'm is thinkingh now about why randolph did not have children. what is there? i don't know. becauset be surprised, it is not -- one of the things that i speculate on is that either there is some sort of youth issue involved, but would expect in such extensive correspondence between husband and wife that there would be lamenting of that, but there isn't. it leads me to believe that there is is a conscious choice made by two people who have very active and connected, but

separate, public lives. randolph marries a woman who is educated, older, an entrepreneur, politically active, and perhaps more, or better socially connected in harlem that he was. , a is older, established professional in her own right, an entrepreneur. she might be making some very modern choices about childbearing and he finds himself in a very different position than many of his peers in the 1920's with respect to those kinds of decisions. i don't know that i can give you any kind of definitive answer because there is nothing in the record beyond, as you point out, this affectionate name for each

other, buddy. even that is kind of telling. you are married for 49 years and the best you can say about your wife is, she is buddy? well, ok, whatever. to each his own. there is a lot of room to speculate because there is not a lot of documentation. at the when you look women in randolph's life, they are telling. is a preacher's wife ,ho finds her own kind of voice both political and public, through her husband's role as church pastor. that affords her a great deal of social authority.

she is commenting on church finance, church programs, society issues from the role of preacher's wife, which gives her a role and place outside the home, even if she does not necessarily grasp it in the way that someone like dorothy height does. the woman he marries is a different woman. she has her own political presence -- i am sorry, public presence. in some ways, they are both very charismatic. they're both very strong-willed alongsidefind place their male companions. i don't really know that i can give you the kind of flesh on the bone that does not exist because there is no record. i think when you begin to piece together elements of randolph's life and look at him through the lens of the women that impacted him so greatly, it

may be paints a different picture of him. it is funny that mindy is here, because in the papers come up i can't effectively reconcile the shortcomings that she so cogently points out with respect to randolph and gender with the who is so deeply influenced by these two women. kind of thingrd to the women's auxiliary -- yeah, we want the money you raise, but we are the boss -- when his wife carries him financially through so much of his early professional career. he says in his own papers that his mother was the driving force in the household that kept his father on track, professionally and financially.

i don't know that i have good answers -- >> my answer is going to be a little bit different. first, i want to point out that reading the bottom -- reading the autobiography of malcolm x is by alex haley. there are levels of literary license that i think you have to be concerned about because we don't know what the actual tape says versus what haley wrote. it is important to remember that some of these autobiography are not always self-authored. this will be a short story and i hope not to distract the rest of the panel. byas very interested randolph. at the time, i was writing the dissertation. i asked the nephew of roy

who grew up and new randolph for many years, but particularly in the late 1950's and into 1960's. i was talking to roger one day, and this was many years ago, and i said, what about randolph's wife? and roger said, wife? i never knew he was married. [laughter] i always thought he was gay. i am throwing in a lavender herring, if you will. i think it is something to consider. it is not the only person from home i have heard this story, nor is it the only person -- i have also heard information, let me put it that way, about lucille and randolph's own gender and sexual preferences. we might want to be a little more flexible or less

heteronormative in our assumptions. >> i think you are absolutely right. i think it is suggestive that two people who had such deep affection for each other, married for so long, chose not to have children without there being any clear discussion of why. >> it is interesting that polly murray calls it a partnership, and i think that is what randolph had. >> in the interest of time, i'm going to go to the next question. >> sorry. for the you so much panel. i am so glad that i came. one of my all-time favorite "miles of smiles." i am really glad that i came. , i spentof years ago the summer in chicago and i

don't remember how i found out about this, but i signed up for a walking tour of the pullman site and i assumed that what i was going to see and learn about was going to be about the pullman quarters, because that is all i knew. pullman, right? so i went outside and went on the tour, and it was actually led by one of the guys that lived in one of the houses that you are talking about. you meet him by the gate and he has an umbrella or something. that is how you know who he is. he takes you all over. because disappointed there was nothing, nothing, nothing about the pullman quarters. even after the two were, we went museum, and i don't think there was anything where, but if there was, it was just so. this is all to say that i am so happy you are working on this because it is such an incredibly

, like you said, the architecture and the place, it is just astounding. anyway, -- one other really quick comment, and this will i never read like books and only watch movies, but i saw this documentary called "the first lady of little rock" about daisy bates. in the movie, one of the things i learned is that daisy bates actually did speak -- >> she did. she gave a 142-word speed. >> a tweet. >> i did not know if -- >> yeah. >> i think lots of people do not know that. it was very short. anyway. [laughter] >> let's go to the next

question. >> this question is towards leaaron and sandra. you talk about the national parks preserving urban and cultural institutions. the are your thoughts on rapid gentrification of black neighborhoods with certain cultures locating in on black communities? developers do not recognize the cultural importance of the buildings? will do send and make it into a starbucks or cvs. >> i will leave that for sandra. [laughter] >> all right. a moment ago, i was wishing i

had worn my uniform and i'm glad i didn't. wow. the park service -- we are in a lot of urban areas, so we try to tell the story of that urban place. one of the places we are in very quietly is detroit. we do not have a national park in detroit, but we have a lot of community activism work we are for preservingt green space, working with the city and the parks department as detroit re-greens themselves. many of you are familiar that detroit is going to a re-greeni ng. in areassking people where there is very light homeownership and asking, how would you like to live over here were more people live? only three people in a

square-mile live in this neighborhood. maybe you would like to go over here. they will take the houses down and put ann them, agricultural fields to grow food in detroit. the parks are working on a. we have a park 20 miles away and there is a heritage area in the city of detroit. there are a number of people who have said to me in the last couple of years, i think it the nationalt if park service -- and they fill in the blank with something in detroit that makes me shudder. whether it is the first baptist or the second baptist church of detroit, which is a lively congregation and needs no help from the park service that could not be resolved with a small check, but they certainly do not ,eed rangers, and motown absolutely needs no park rangers.

i have fascinated by the opportunity that we could have on detroit with community activism. in new orleans, the national present at jazz national and it would be easy for the park service just to tell the story right in the middle in the french quarter. we're trying to tell the story through being active by making certain the homes of the musicians are safe in their context, not as the last home standing. of course, katrina got in the way of that. >> i thoroughly enjoyed each of your presentations. i actually grew up in rosalynn pullman. i was told to say that i re-migrated here. what is interesting is that i want to corliss high school, ofch is right at the back

the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, pullman, the museum. however, i did not know that. it was not until i had graduated at ucla and came back home that i decided to organize on the southside of chicago that i even knew the museum was there. working through the museum. she was the founder of the museum. incredibly, what you said, dr. about a. phillip randolph kind of being -- and a woman found his museum and gave him an opportunity to pay him some attention. as a young person, i did not know anything about a. phillip randolph and i'm sure that is because it wasn't introduced to

me. nobody told me to go to the back of the high school and i could get all this knowledge. when we talk about the national park service, i'm so glad that you are here, but when we talk about the national park service and hopefully the future of it, we have to begin talking about seeing our national historic sites in the context of young people, so they can pay it some attention. for example, when we think about memphis and all the amazing blues notes -- not just knows. i've been learning, right? [laughter] anyway, when we talk about the history and historic landmarks in memphis and the ability of the national park service to come into a place like this and defined what is nationally historic in a new way that young people can pay attention to, so whether it is from the air of

the blues for today, like take me to the riverdance, i hope you have seen that movie, what young people are doing, then we can engage young people. theseill want to observe places in a different way. --ust want to say quickly i'm sorry. i need to get a little more focused. the idea is you give an opportunity to identify new ways of viewing what is a national treasure. in chicago for example, if something is named the pullman historical site versus being , you the pullman porter know, george pullman brotherhood of sleeping car porters national park, then it has a kind of exclusivity that was talked

about where the sleeping car porters had no significant role. do what you can to put them in there. you can't just call it pullman. he was a significant person. once i found out about him, i took my children to the pullman museum, but i took my children and students to the sleeping car porter museum. that will only become important if national -- if we save segments of the population are important. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] i am not a millennial. i am generation x. i would rather you refer to me as a philadelphia eagles fan. referenceuestion or to all of the porters.

it has always been my understanding that most of them were men who may have gone to college and then they came out and because of many reasons, they aren't able to do anything else. is it possible because it is this group of educated men and they are marrying women and they are attempting to assimilate to , is a reason or is it the reason why they succeed where so many other groups don't succeed? does that play a role in it? i would say no. forces not the driving that leads to the success of the brotherhood. i would say part of it is fortunate timing. i think a big part of it is what melinda's book details in terms

of what the women due to provide the financial resources and structure that make it possible for people like randolph to be kind of out on the edge. -- i was going to say something colloquial, but i cannot say it in this setting. he is able to say and do some of the things he is able to say and do because of the financial support provided by the women's auxiliary. it is also timing. timing is important. the brotherhood of sleeping car porters was not the first union founded. there were two coupe or three others that failed almost right after, right at the turn-of-the-century. randolph is an important figure because he brings certain

insights to organizing. there is no doubt about that. that is only part of the story of success. you can't really account for the success of the brotherhood without taking into account what melinda is talking about in her book. >> one last question and it has to be quick. >> good afternoon. sessionnjoyed the panel . i have to be here with three other mid-level managers from the park service in the corner. i want to know what your thoughts are if the site is not the 402nd national park. what are the plans? question, i your think that is a good question. as position of the campaign it has gone over the last two years has been that coleman is

well-positioned to be before hundred second national park site. ,he status of the campaign where we are is that senator richard durbin, who was the assistant majority whip of the senate, as well as senator mark kirkman, have cosponsored pullmanion to establish national historic park. that was the first step. there are two ways for a national park site to be traded. when the congressional route does not work initially. there is a second option and that is using the president's executive authority through a law called the antiquities act of 1906 which was created during the presidency of teddy roosevelt to bypass congress when congress was not doing what it was supposed to do verbal preserving the national areas --

countryareas of the that the president could have been and designate federally-owned property as a national park service to manage that site. where we are and that process, is that we're in regular communication with thb.c. 110% local support for pullman being designated as a national park site. we have over 15,000 people in their support, as well as 150 community, building, and labor say that woman should be a second national park site -- that pullman to should be the 402 national park site.

with the loudest voice are once recognized. there are people that say they be hundredn to second national park site. we could pull together. 4 is02 a brilliant campaign, but we have to fight for. i wanted think the panel. -- i wanted to thank the panel. bynum, sandra washington, dr. melinda

foley.vert, leaaron we have two great authors that have done great work on biographies. >> both are available in the vendor area. once again, i'm alan spears from the national parks conservation association. be emily, adam, and matalin. please raise your hands. any questions about npca, stop by and visit us and pick up a copy of our brochure. hot off the presses. i would be remiss if i did not close by saying this ends the of the 9/9 annual -- and we will be

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