A. Philip Randolph Institute - APRI Fort Wayne Chapter

A. Philip Randolph Institute - APRI Fort Wayne Chapter APRI's mission, from our founding to the present, has been to advocate for racial equality & economic justice. We thank you for your financial support.

Our main programs are voter & issues mobilization. APRI, although involved in political & community education, is a non-partisan organization. Donations to our programs and annual scholarship fund can be made via mail to APRI- Fort Wayne Chapter PO Box 13243 Fort Wayne, IN 46868-3243. What We Support Today
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Civil rights, strong anti-discrimination measures and affirmative action



Policies to promote a decent wage, high growth, full employment economy

Labor law reform and worker health and safety protections

Decent minimum living standards for all, including anti-poverty programs, a fair minimum wage and a comprehensive "safety net"

Universal, affordable health care

Family leave and child care

Progressive and fair tax policies

International workers' rights and fair trade

Education and training programs

Our History
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To Asa Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, APRl's co-founders, the fight for workers' rights and civil rights were inseparable. Randolph (1889-1979) was the greatest black labor leader in American history and the father of the modern American civil rights movement. Rustin (1912- 1987), a leading civil rights and labor activist and strategist, was the chief organizer of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Randolph's greatest protégé. Randolph and Rustin forged an alliance between the civil rights movement and the labor movement. They recognized that blacks and working people of all colors share the same goals: political and social freedom and economic justice. This Black-Labor Alliance helped the civil rights movement achieve one of its greatest victories - passage of the Voting Rights Act, which removed the last remaining legal harriers to broad black political participation. Inspired by this success,

Randolph and Rustin founded A. Philip Randolph Institute in 1965 to continue the struggle for social, political and economic justice for all working Americans. APRI is an Organization of Black Trade Unionist to Fight for Racial Equality and Economic Justice. Today, APRI is led by National President Clayola Brown whose vision and energy has sparked a new beginning for our organization and for the movement as a whole. Gentle Warrior: A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979)
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He was called the most dangerous black man in America. He led 250,000 people in the historic 1963 March on Washington. He spoke for all the dispossessed: Blacks, poor Whites, Puerto Ricans, Indians and Mexican Americans. He attained for Black workers their rightful place in the house of Labor. He won the fight to ban discrimination in the armed forces. He organized the 1957-prayer pilgrimage for the civil rights bill. He was President of the Institute, bearing his name, and President Emeritus of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the union he built. APRI National Presidents
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1965 - 1980 A. Philip Randolph
1980 - 2004 Norman Hill
2004 - Present Clayola Brown


APRI Fort Wayne Presidents
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Current: Leroy Jackson, Jr. Former: Victure Scruggs, Robert Carpenter, George Eldridge

05/01/2026

Please see the statement from APRI concerning Voting Rights.

04/15/2026

Today, this civil rights icon would have been 137 years old! We're still doing your work Mr. Randolph, happy birthday!

04/07/2026

I am humbled and honored by the commitment that military service personnel, as well as their families, make in service to our country. This beautiful story in UU World highlights the life and contributions of James Clayton Flowers, the oldest known living Tuskegee Airman, a courageous group of African Americans who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and were renowned for their exceptional service and skill.

Flowers is a Unitarian Universalist and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Rev. Ali K.C. Bell, minister at the Las Cruces congregation reflects fondly in the story on something Flowers often says: “People always want to talk to me about being a Tuskegee Airman, but I’m most proud of being a teacher and that I taught RE.”

Read more about James Clayton Flowers at the link to the UU World story in the comments below.

04/04/2026
04/02/2026

Power, and a New Kind of Politics
Randolph understood that dignity wasn’t a slogan. It was a contract, a paycheck, and a ballot.

The photograph of A. Philip Randolph that endures most stubbornly is not a portrait softened by time. It is a face set against the pressure of history—broad, unblinking, unseduced by applause. He looked like a man who had learned, through repetition, that the country’s grand ideals were negotiable only when people without power found a way to make themselves costly to ignore. Randolph did not invent the moral language of Black freedom. What he helped invent—patiently, and with an organizer’s suspicion of symbolism unbacked by structure—was the machinery that could convert that language into institutional change.

Read the full story at https://www.kolumnmagazine.com/2026/02/27/power-and-a-new-kind-of-politics/

03/17/2026

While the rest of the world is celebrating St. Patrick's Day, the A. Philip Randolph Institute is celebrating one of the world's greatest geniuses, strategists and organizers that this movement has ever seen. Happy Birthday to our amazing Co-Founder, Bayard Rustin. Thank you Mr. Rustin for laying the groundwork for past, present and future movement leaders.

03/13/2026

563 Delegates ascended on Chicago, IL in 2025. How many will join us at the 55th APRI NATIONAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE in beautiful New Orleans, Louisiana, July 22-26, 2026. Don't miss out.
Online Registration is now LIVE.
Register NOW: https://cvent.me/77K9w4?RefId=Facebook

An incredible moment in time! Congratulations Roxanne Brown and United Steelworkers
03/03/2026

An incredible moment in time! Congratulations Roxanne Brown and United Steelworkers

03/01/2026
02/22/2026

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PO Box 13243
Fort Wayne, IN
46868

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