FEPC, WW II, AND THE ROOTS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1
FEPC, WW II, AND THE ROOTS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
2
FEPC, WW II, AND THE ROOTS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT

• POPULAR BEGINNINGS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
  MOVEMENT?
• 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka,
  Kansas
• 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott- MLK Rosa Parks
• 1955 Murder in the Mississippi Delta - Emmett
  Till
• 1957 Desegregation of Central High School in
  Little Rock, Arkansas
• 1960 Student lunch counter sit-in movement
• 1961-1962 Freedom Riders
• 1963 March on Washington MLK I have a dream
  speech.
• All are important, but perhaps the origins of the
  modern civil rights movement are further back in
  our history.

3
WORLD WAR II AND THE ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT THE FORGOTTEN YEARS

• The seeds of the 1963 March on Washington are
  planted in the memories of the aborted 1941
  March on Washington.
• A. Phillip Randolph was involved with both. As
  the leader of the 1941 MOWM organization and in
  1963 as the tall elder statesman of the civil
  rights movement standing in back of Martin Luther
  King on the platform.
• What motivated Randolph and his supporters in
  1941?
• A sense of déjà vu? A desire not to repeat the
  history of World War I when the rising
  expectations of African Americans believed that
  Wilsonian concepts of democracy and equality
  included them.

4
WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH

• W.E.B. Du Bois and the Close Ranks editorial
  Crisis (July, 1918) forget our special
  grievances.
• Red Summer of 1919 (race riots in 26 cities)
• Lynchings and anti-black riots (Tulsa and
  Rosewood)
• A. Phillip Randolph and Chandler Owen co-editors
  of the Messenger, a black socialist publication
  critical of World War I arrested under the
  Espionage and Sedition Acts.
• Southern political disfranchisement continues
• Racial discrimination in employment and housing
  continues

5
THE ROARING 1930S THE GREAT DEPRESSION, AN AGE
OF ACTIVISM

• National unemployment in spring of 1933 was 25,
  but in African American communities near 50.
• White owned chain department stores and other
  businesses in black communities refuse to hire
  black workers.
• Urban boycott movements of these stores by black
  patrons organized throughout northern cities like
  Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York City,
  Baltimore, Washington, D.C.

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IMPACT OF WORLD WAR II ON AFRICAN AMERICAN
THOUGHT?

• Europeans and later joined by Americans were
  fighting the good war against totalitarianism,
  fascism, racism, and Aryan supremacy with a
  segregated society segregated army (one white,
  one black) blacks politically disfranchised and
  economically subjugated in the South. The
  contradictions were self-evident.
• James Baldwin growing up in Harlem during the war
  years was affected by the contradiction The
  treatment accorded the Negro during the Second
  World War marks for me, a turning point in the
  Negros relation to America. To put if briefly,
  and somewhat too simply, a certain hope died, a
  certain respect for white Americans faded.

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THE DOUBLE V AN AFRICAN AMERICAN SECOND FRONT

• During 1940 campaign FDR meets with A. Phillip
  Randolph and Walter White at the white house on
  desegregation of the army to no avail. (Sept. 27,
  1940)
• The United States Senate soon after, rejects
  again a federal anti-lynching bill.
• What are the reactions of the NAACPs Crisis
  magazine and other black publications to American
  apartheid before America enters the war?

8
THE BLACK PRESS CAMPAIGNS VICTORY OVER FASCISM
ABROAD AND RACISM AT HOME

• The Crisis is sorry for brutality, blood, and
  death among the peoples of Europe, just as we
  were sorry for China and Ethiopia. . . We want
  democracy in Alabama and Arkansas, in Mississippi
  and Michigan, in the District of Columbia in
  the Senate of the United States.
• George Schuyler, columnist for the Pittsburgh
  Courier, asserted that Our War is not against
  Hitler in Europe, but against the Hitlers in
  America.

9
THE MARCH TOWARDS A FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES
COMMISSION (FEPC)

• NAACP calls January 26, 1941 National Defense
  Day with protest meetings held in 23 states
• In January of 1941, A. Philip Randolph called for
  a nation-wide mass demonstration in the nations
  capital. The MOWM movement and the organization
  of that name is born.
• On Valentines Day, February 14, 1942, the
  Pittsburgh Courier announced its Double V
  campaign and other black newspapers echo their
  sentiments comparing Nazi racism and southern
  racism, i.e. Nazi/Jim Crow analogy.
• MOWM bars communists from joining and the NAACP
  gives luke warm support.
• Roosevelt fears 100,000 African Americans
  descending on nations capital

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FDR FAILS TO THE HALT THE MOWM MARCH HIS OPTIONS
AND HIS COMPROMISES

• June 13, 1941, meeting in Mayor La Guardias
  office with A. Philip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt
  (first lady) and Aubrey Williams (National Youth
  Administration). They ask Randolph to call of the
  march.
• June 24, 1941, La Guardia meets with the MOWM
  leaders and informs them that the President is
  prepared to issue an executive order (8802) the
  next day banning racial discrimination in defense
  industries. Randolph agrees to call off the July
  1, 1941March and will go on the national radio
  hookup to inform his followers.
• Not all happy. Youth Division of the Negro March
  Committee unhappy since issues of political
  disfranchisement, anti-black violence in the
  South, segregation in the South and the armed
  forces remain.

11
MOWM KEEPS ON THE PRESSURE TO HAVE A VIGOROUS
FEPC-Why?

• MOWM pleased with the creation of the FEPC and
  basked in the adulation, of its creation, but
  others worried
• Fearful that the FEPC would be moved from the
  direct responsibility of the President and that
  the FEPC would not have direct control over or
  adequate staff to police and enforce the
  executive order.
• Thus the largest rally since the Marcus Garvey
  days was held in Madison Square Garden where
  20,000 celebrated funeral zed Uncle Toms
  Funeral and Here Lies Uncle Tom in June of
  1942. Despite these rallies in several cities,
  the FEPC was transferred to the War Manpower
  Commission under Paul McNut in July of 1942.

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LEGACY OF THE FEPC (I)

• Randolph and others feel the FEPC was not
  vigorous enough. Many threatened a new March in
  1943 especially postponement of discrimination
  hearings in railroad industry in Jan. of 1943.
• Randolph called a Save the FEPC conference in
  Washington, D.C. on Feb. 15, 1943. This led to
  the formation of a new organization in September
  of 1943 (A National Council for a Permanent
  NAACP).
• The Truman Administration never established a
  permanent FEPC, but MOWM had firmly planted the
  idea of Federal government intervention against
  racial discrimination in the private sector. A
  reality unrealized until the 1960s civil rights
  movement and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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Legacy of the FEPC (II)

• The campaign for a permanent FEPC planted the
  idea of government regulation of the private
  sector to prohibit employment racial
  discrimination.
• The campaign for a permanent FEPC increased
  militancy and momentum among African Americans
  and their white civil rights supporters to
  continue the struggle within the Democratic Party
  to desegregate the armed forces, prohibit racial
  political disfranchisement, and continue the
  campaign for a federal anti-lynching law.
• The Nazi/Jim Crow analogy is employed in the
  immediate post WW II civil rights campaign by
  blacks and liberal white supporters.