By 1940 the demand for war materials to fight the wars in Europe had begun to lift the United States out of the Depression even before America became involved in the war.  Walter White and the NAACP was just becoming aware of the issue of discrimination in the defense industry on a trip to the West Coast in 1940.  Many West Coast branches complaining to him of discrimination in this growing source of jobs. White and the NAACP undertook a few actions like writing letters and such but other civil rights organizations were out in front on this issue.  In March of 1941 A. Philip Randolph a noted black labor leader wrote to White proposing that they and a few others organize a March on Washington to protest this discrimination.

The march threatened to be a large mass action movement unlike anything the NAACP had successfully organized since 1918's silent march protesting lynching. As the movement gathered steam Randolph, White, the Urban League and several others organized as the March on Washington movement entered negotiations with FDR administration officials.  The movement committee wanted FDR to issue an executive order banning discrimination in defense industries and threatened to hold the march unless he did. Negotiations dragged on until July but FDR finally issued Executive Order 8802 putting the government on record as opposed to discrimination in industries supplying the government, urging all branches of the government to take discrimination into account when choosing a supplier and setting up a Fair Employment Practices Committee to investigate discrimination in industries.

The order did not provide the complete discrimination ban that the March on Washington committee wanted and the FEPC that it set up was rather toothless.  However, the compromise it won was more government support for African American rights than had ever been achieved before.  It led to the "postponement" of the march (until two decades later) when many of the actors and circumstances had changed.

Comment on this page