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The Call to Negro America to March
on Washington (1941) In May 1941, A. Philip Randolph
(1889Ð1979), the African-American head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters, threatened a "thundering march" on Washington of 150,000
blacks "to wake up and shock white America as it has never been shocked
before." Such a dramatic public event, he decided, was the only way to
convince President Roosevelt to ensure equality of opportunity in the rapidly
expanding defense industries and government agencies. Just before the
scheduled march, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which
created a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to eliminate racial
discrimination in government hiring. Randolph thereupon canceled the march.
But the mere creation of a new federal agency did not ensure justice.
Randolph therefore kept the pressure on the administration to provide
adequate funding and staffing for the FEPC. Although black employment in
federal jobs increased from 60,000 in 1941 to 200,000 in 1945, the FEPC could
not directly regulate private employers or labor unions. Moreover, despite
these limitations, attempts to make the FEPC a permanent government agency
never generated broad-based political support. We call upon you to fight for jobs
in National Defense. We call upon you to struggle for the integration of
Negroes in the armed forces. . . . We call upon you to demonstrate
for the abolition of Jim-Crowism in all Government departments and defense
employment. This is an hour of crisis. It is a
crisis of democracy. It is a crisis of minority groups. It is a crisis of
Negro Americans. What is this crisis? To American Negroes, it is the
denial of jobs in Government defense projects. It is racial discrimination in
Government departments. It is widespread Jim-Crowism in the armed forces of
the Nation. While billions of the taxpayers'
money are being spent for war weapons, Negro workers
are finally being turned away from the gates of factories, mines and
mills—being flatly told, "NOTHING DOING." Some employers refuse to
give Negroes jobs when they are without "union cards," and some
unions refuse Negro workers union cards when they are "without
jobs." What shall we do? Though dark, doubtful and
discouraging, all is not lost, all is not hopeless. Though battered and
bruised, we are not beaten, broken, or bewildered. Verily, the Negroes' deepest
disappointments and direst defeats, their tragic trials and outrageous
oppressions in these dreadful days of destruction and disaster to democracy
and freedom, and the rights of minority peoples, and the dignity and
independence of the human spirit, is the Negroes' greatest opportunity to
rise to the highest heights of struggle for freedom and justice in
Government, in industry, in labor unions, education, social service,
religion, and culture. With faith and confidence of the
Negro people in their own power for self-liberation, Negroes can break down that barriers of discrimination against employment in
National Defense. Negroes can kill the deadly serpent of race hatred in the
Army, Navy, Air and Marine Corps, and smash through and blast the Government,
business and labor-union red tape to win the right to equal opportunity in
vocational training and re-training in defense employment. Most important and vital of all,
Negroes, by the mobilization and coordination of their mass power, can cause
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TO ISSUE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ABOLISHING DISCRIMINATIONS IN
ALL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT, ARMY, NAVY, AIR CORPS AND NATIONAL DEFENSE JOBS. Of course, the task is not easy.
In very truth, it is big, tremendous and difficult. It will cost money. The Negroes' stake in national defense
is big. It consists of jobs, thousands of jobs. It may represent millions, yes hundreds of millions of dollars in wages. It
consists of new industrial opportunities and hope. This is worth fighting
for. But to win our stakes, it will
require an "all-out, " bold and total
effort and demonstration of colossal proportions. Negroes can build a mammoth
machine of mass action with a terrific and tremendous driving and striking
power that can shatter and crush the evil fortress of race prejudice and hate,
if they will only resolve to do so and never stop, until victory comes. Dear fellow Negro Americans, be
not dismayed by these terrible times. You possess power, great power. Our
problem is to harness and hitch it up for action on the broadest, daring and
most gigantic scale. In this period of power politics,
nothing counts but pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure, through
the tactic and strategy of broad, organized, aggressive mass action behind
the vital and important issues of the Negro. To this end, we propose that ten
thousand Negroes MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS IN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND EQUAL
INTEGRATION IN THE FIGHTING FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES. An "all-out" thundering
march on Washington, ending in a monster and huge demonstration at Lincoln's
Monument will shake up white America. It will shake up official
Washington. We believe in national unity which
recognizes equal opportunity of black and white citizens to jobs in national
defense and the armed forces, and in all other institutions and endeavors in
America. We condemn all dictatorships, Fascist, Nazi and Communist. We are
loyal, patriotic Americans all. But if American democracy will not
defend its defenders; if American democracy will not protect its protectors;
if American democracy will not give jobs to its toilers because of race or
color; if American democracy will not insure equality of opportunity, freedom
and justice to its citizens, black and white, it is a hollow mockery and
belies the principles for which it is supposed to stand. . . . Today we call on President
Roosevelt, a great humanitarian and idealist, to .
. . free American Negro citizens of the stigma, humiliation and insult of
discrimination and Jim-Crowism in Government departments and national
defense. The Federal Government cannot with
clear conscience call upon private industry and labor unions to abolish
discrimination based on race and color as long as it practices discrimination
itself against Negro Americans. [From A. Philip Randolph, "Call to Negro America to March on Washington for Jobs and Equal Participation in National Defense," Black Worker 14 (May 1941):n.p.] |