Randolph T. Blackwell (March 10, 1927 – May 21, 1981) was an American activist of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

, serving in

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civ ...

, amongst other organizations.

Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King ( Scott; April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was married to Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she ...

described him as an "unsung giant" of nonviolent social change. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Blackwell's father was active in

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...

's United Negro Improvement Association; Randolph attended association meetings with his father, and visited the prison where Garvey was held. In 1943, inspired by hearing

Ella Baker Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986) was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and t ...

speak, he founded a youth chapter of the NAACP in Greensboro. As a student in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

at North Carolina A & T University (from which he graduated in 1949) he made an unsuccessful run for the state assembly. He earned a law degree from

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

in 1953, took an assistant professorship at Winston-Salem Teacher’s College and then became an associate professor in 1954 at Alabama A & M College, where he taught government. While at Alabama A & M, Blackwell became a leader of the 1962 student sit-ins in nearby

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

. He left academia in 1963 and became a field director in the

Voter Education Project Voter Education Project (VEP) raised and distributed foundation funds to civil rights organizations for voter education and registration work in the southern United States from 1962 to 1992. The project was federally endorsed by the Kennedy adminis ...

, an organization that promoted

voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted to vote. The r ...

among blacks in the South. In March 1963, while attempting to register black voters in

Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...

with Bob Moses and Jimmy Travis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the car they were driving was fired on. Blackwell and Moses escaped injury but Travis was shot and hospitalized; the shooting brought national media attention to the struggle in the south, energized the civil rights movement, and forced the

Kennedy administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States, began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 ...

to investigate. Blackwell became the program director of the

in 1964, but after a disagreement with

Hosea Williams Hosea Lorenzo Williams (January 5, 1926 – November 16, 2000) was an American civil rights leader, activist, ordained minister, businessman, philanthropist, scientist, and politician. He is best known as a trusted member of fellow famed civil r ...

, he left the organization in 1966 and became the director of Southern Rural Action, an

anti-poverty Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics clas ...

organization in the Deep South. From 1977 to 1979, in the presidency of

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...

, Blackwell was director of the Office of Minority Business Enterprise in the

U.S. Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busin ...

, but was beset there by charges of mismanagement.. In 1976, the

King Center for Nonviolent Social Change The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, commonly known as The King Center, is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization in Atlanta, United States. History The center was founded in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, who st ...

gave him its Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize, and in 1978 the

National Bar Association The National Bar Association (NBA) was founded in 1925 and is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 65,000 lawyers, judges, law profess ...

gave him their Equal Justice Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackwell, Randolph T. 1927 births 1981 deaths North Carolina A&T State University alumni Howard University alumni Winston-Salem State University faculty Alabama A&M University faculty Activists for African-American civil rights American anti-poverty advocates American democracy activists African-American activists United States Department of Commerce officials Carter administration personnel