In response to the 1963 Children's Crusade and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, A. Philip Randolph, former head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, an early black trade union, and Bayard Rustin, founded the APRI to forge an alliance between the civil rights movement and the labor movement. These efforts got them on the master list of Nixon political opponents.
This sequence of events followed the 1963 Children's Crusade and the Voting Rights Act, A. Philip Randolph, former leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Bayard Rustin established APRI to link the civil rights movement with labor movement. These initiatives led them to be included on Nixon's list of adversaries.