A. Philip Randolph Quotes

“At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything, and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Freedom is never given; it is won.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”

— A. Philip Randolph

In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it.

— A. Philip Randolph

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.

— A. Philip Randolph

“We must develop huge demonstrations, because the world is used to big dramatic affairs. They think in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions and billions ... Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Those who deplore our militants, who exhort patience in the name of a false peace, are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They are more concerned with easing racial tension than enforcing racial democracy.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Look for the enemies of Medicare, of higher minimum wages, of Social Security, of federal aid to education and there you will find the enemy of the Negro, the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure through broad organized aggressive mass action.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“It's easy to get people's attention, what counts is getting their interest.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“We want the full works of citizenship with no reservations. We will accept nothing less ... This condition of freedom, equality, and democracy is not the gift of gods. It is the task of men, yes, men, brave men, honest men, determined men.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.”

— A. Philip Randolph

“Power is the flower of organization.”

— A. Philip Randolph

Winning Democracy for the Negro is winning the war for Democracy

— A. Philip Randolph