ABSTRACT: In 1922 the American Fund for Public Service received two requests for money from people who would become famous campaigners for labor rights and racial justice. One came from union organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who admitted that she had "tried very hard … not to ask rich people for money" and "disliked intensely to apply," but needed funds for the defense of jailed anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The other letter came from A. Philip Randolph, who would go on to found the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and plan the March on Washington. At the time, Randolph needed funding to keep The Messenger, the Black socialist magazine he started, afloat. Randolph also wrote with reluctance, having called the donor behind the foundation a "mental nut" and a "simpleton" just the year prior. Under normal circumstances, coming hat in hand to a foundation while promoting leftist causes would have been unwise, if not foolhardy. The American Fund, or the Garland Fund as it was known, was not, however, an ordinary foundation. The requests were quickly approved.
A Mon, study studied this question.