SR0663 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0663 LRB097 20782 KXB 67389 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Asa Philip Randolph was noted for his work with labor; his leadership role in the Civil Rights arena has always been understated; he was the lead architect for the 1963 March on Washington, D.C., for which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the credit; and

WHEREAS, Asa Philip Randolph, with the help of Bayard Rustin and many others, set the tone and direction for a proposed march on Washington in 1940, designed to ask the nation's leaders to desegregate munitions plants; and

WHEREAS, President Franklin D. Roosevelt desegregated these plants during World War II with Executive Order 8802, the Fair Employment Act; that Act set the tone for African-American's in the labor movement in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Asa Philip Randolph was the first African-American to have a seat on the board of the AFL-CIO, serving as Vice-President; and

WHEREAS, Asa Philip Randolph established the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the National Negro Congress; and

WHEREAS, The A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum in Chicago has asked all of the residents of the State of Illinois to honor this great labor leader on the occasion of his 123rd birthday by proclaiming April 15, 2012 as A. Philip Randolph Day in the State of Illinois; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that April 15, 2012 be named A. Philip Randolph Day in the State of Illinois, and that all Illinoisans are invited to join in the celebration of his birth at the A. Philip Randolph Museum in Chicago; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Dr. Lyn Hughes, founder of the A. Philip Randolph Museum in Chicago, as a symbol of our respect and esteem.