Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1978) became America’s foremost African American labor leader and a major force in the Civil Rights movement. He founded the first black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and negotiated a contract with the Pullman Company in 1937. He organized mass protest movements to persuade President Franklin Roosevelt to outlaw discrimination in defense plants in 1940 and President Harry Truman to integrate the armed forces in 1948.