Asa Philip Randolph was a pioneer crusader for Civil Rights. In 1925, he founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (the Pullman Porters). In 1963, he was one of the Big Six organizers of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Full-page inscription by King: “To my dear friend A. Philip Randolph. / In appreciation of the standards of loyalty, honesty, non-violence and the will to endure that you have held before all people in the struggle for freedom, justice, and democracy, / Martin”
While MLK believed that the end goal must be “redemption and reconciliation,” Randolph declared that ultimately, the “Negro must fight and suffer for his rights.”
While signing copies of this book in Harlem on September 20, 1958, King was attacked by a mentally ill woman who stabbed him with a 7-inch steel letter opener. According to doctors who operated on the 29-year-old civil rights leader, “Had Dr. King sneezed or coughed, the weapon would have penetrated the aorta…. He was just a sneeze away from death.” Randolph chaired a fundraising drive to cover expenses relating to the attack and King’s recovery.
Remarkably, Randolph has marked or annotated 69 of the book’s 224 pages. On some, he simply underlined passages that struck him as particularly relevant or powerful. Dozens of other pages are filled with his extensive notes, often copying, echoing, or amplifying King’s sentiments. Examples include:
- “Negro worker has a right to expect the trade unions to help him secure economic and political rights”
- “Prediction of violence is an invitation to action,” penned to the side of King on the effects that leaders’ statements have had on unfolding events.
- “Non-violence is a way of humility and self-restraint” • “Inflammatory statements of white Southern leaders make for violence”
- “Future of USA bound up with how this problem of race is handled and solved”
- “A first class nation cannot afford second class citizenship”
- “Morals cannot be legislated but behavior can be regulated”
- “Poor whites suffer poverty while clinging to the myth of racial superiority”
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Signed Book, Stride Toward Freedom. First edition. New York: Harper and Row, 1958. Inscribed to A. Philip Randolph, who added underlining and/or notes on more than 60 pp., 224 pp.
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