The leaders of the BSCP—including A. Philip Randolph, its founder and first president, and C. L. Dellums, its vice president and second president—became leaders in the civil rights movement and continued to play a significant role in it after it focused on the eradication of segregation in the South.
In 1998, the United States Congress passed a bill naming the building for former mayor and Congressman Ronald V. Dellums.