April 15 marks the 111th birthday anniversary of A. Philip Randolph. The son of a Methodist minister, he went on to establish and lead the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; to fight successfully against racial discrimination in the trade union movement as the nation's most prominent black labor leader; and to become a leading civil rights advocate who forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ban employment discrimination by federal contractors, compelled President Harry Truman to end segregation in the armed forces; and initiated the great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

Bayard Rustin, a frequent collaborator of Randolph's, was born 89 years ago as of last March 17. He participated in the first freedom rides against segregated seating on interstate buses in 1947; was a key adviser to Martin Luther King from 1956 to 1965 who conceived and played a major role in organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and organized Randolph's 1963 March on Washington.

In 1965 these two giants joined to form the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a national organization primarily of black trade unionists, welcoming anyone in its ranks committed to the struggle for racial equality and economic justice. These men are towering figures not just because of their specific accomplishments but also because of their democratic principles, from which those accomplishments flowed.

Their most important principle, the foundation of all of their work, was the unity of humankind. Randolph spoke of "the dignity and sacredness of the personality of every human being" and stated that human rights "exist as a result of an individual being human, black or white, Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant." They opposed all forms of discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and nationality.

In one case, though, Randolph and Rustin clearly backed one group over another: they favored the struggle of the poor against the rich, of the economically exploited against their exploiters. They regarded the battle of the disadvantaged to improve their lot as the central theme of history, and they believed that struggle could best be won in a society with democratic framework.

That is why even back in the 1940s, when Jim Crow still reigned supreme, Randolph said that the African-American - the most exploited of all Americans - "will continue to cast his lot with the democratic society, for he feels that through the right of assembly, petition and freedom of speech he has powerful tools for pointing out the flaws and inconsistencies in the American democratic pronouncement and its practices." The achievements of the civil rights movement have vindicated Randolph and Rustin's commitment to a free society.

But they knew that the struggle did not end with the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, far from it. So after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they turned their attention to the next stage of battle: the pursuit of economic justice for African Americans.

In this pursuit, Randolph and Rustin knew that the trade union movement was the most important ally of African Americans, the great majority of whom are workers. As Randolph remarked, organized labor "traditionally has been the only haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, and the poor." Since African Americans were doubly exploited both as blacks and as workers, they understood that blacks stood to gain more than anyone else at the collective bargaining table. And at the political level, Rustin pointed out, "the labor movement has been the largest single organized force in this country pushing for progressive legislation."

Randolph and Rustin established the A. Philip Randolph Institute in 1965 to serve as the linchpin of what they called the black-labor coalition. At the Institute we act as a bridge between the African-American community and trade unions. We bring the concerns of our communities into the house of labor and work to ensure fair representation of blacks within labor's leadership ranks.

At the end of the bridge, in our black communities, we drum up support for local union organizing drives and urge our friends and neighbors working in the targeted institutions to vote for union representation. We are also very active in electoral politics. Our voter participation campaigns involve registering new voters, voter education, and getting out voters on election day in African-American communities across the nation.

In 1996 black votes helped elect the more labor-friendly United States Senatorial candidates in Louisiana, Georgia and Maryland, APRI affiliates conducted vigorous voter participation drives in all three states. Of 14 House races where the black vote made the difference, helping to slice Newt Gingrich's house majority in half, APRI chapters were active in 11.

We also lobby our legislators on behalf of the black-labor agenda for racial equality and economic justice. Working with the AFL-CIO, we helped secure an increase in the minimum wage from a reluctant right-wing Congress in 1996. In 1997 the black-labor coalition worked successfully to defeat the "fast track" trading authority sought by the White House, which would have enabled the president to cut trade deals without any input from workers and consumers.

Some in our community engage in militant sloganeering, issuing sweeping denunciations of "the system" and urging a "go-it-alone" policy for blacks. But this approach hobbles African Americans instead of helping them, for two reasons. First, by in effect rejecting participation in the democratic process, this approach also rejects the opportunities that democracy gives us to influence the events that affect our lives. Second, they isolate blacks from the rest of the country and turn off potential allies.

Our approach at the APRI, on the contrary, is the great democratic, anti-racist tradition of Randolph and Rustin. We utilize the democratic system to the fullest extent possible, and we reject racial exclusivism in favor of forging coalitions with allies outside of our communities. Indeed, in utilizing democracy we also enhance it by enlarging democratic participation-in trade unions and at the polls-by those who have historically been most oppressed. Our Randolph-Rustin tradition is not only morally superior to the alternative I have described, but year after year, over decades of time, has proved pragmatically more effective as well.