August 28, 2023: Contextualizing the March on Washington: 1941 Origins

[August 28th marks the60th anniversary of the March onWashington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the single mostimportant events in 20th century American history.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for and from thatevent—not including MartinLuther King Jr.’s iconic speech, about which I’ve written agood bit already!]

On twoimportant contexts illustrated by a planned 1941 march.

Theconcept of a march on Washington to push the government toward certain actionsis a longstanding one in American history, going back at least to examples like“Coxey’sArmy” in 1894 and the Bonus Army in 1932. Thelatter in particular seems to have been one inspiration for labor leaderA. Philip Randolph and civil rights activist BayardRustin’s developing early 1941 plans for a march on Washington to protestthe Franklin Roosevelt administration’s segregation and discrimination inwartime hiring practices. Randolphand NAACP leader Walter White had met with Roosevelt in September 1940 toargue for integrating all levels of the armed forces and war efforts but hadgotten nowhere, with the White Houseissuing a statement that “The policy of the War Department is not tointermingle colored and white enlisted personnel.” So in January Randolphproposed the concept (with the formal name of the Marchon Washington Movement) of a collective march on Washington to put pressureon the administration, and he began working with Rustin to plan the logisticsfor an early July march which they hoped would bring at least 100,000protesters to DC.

Just aweek before the march’s scheduled date President Roosevelt signed ExecutiveOrder 8802, establishing a federal FairEmployment Practices Committee (FEPC) that both desegregated wartimeindustries specifically and prohibited discrimination in federal vocational andtraining programs more broadly. Perhaps Roosevelt was genuinely convinced thatthis was the right step, or perhaps he was fearful of the bad press that asizeable protest would generate just as the US was ramping up its war efforts;Randolph seems to have feared the latter, as he maintainedthe March on Washington Movement throughout the war to keep the pressureon. And in any case, these March on Washington contexts remind us of theconsistent racial segregation that plagued the Roosevelt Administration’ssignature (and in many ways progressive) programs likethe New Deal. Whoever was in the White House, civil rights leaders knewthat they had to push and pressure to achieve any and all steps toward equalityand justice, and Randolph and Rustin revealed that a march on Washington couldbe one important tool in that arsenal.

Thecentral roles and relationship between those two men in these 1941 eventslikewise illustrates another important context for the 1963 march and CivilRights Movement histories overall: the interconnections between labor and civilrights. As I highlighted inthis post, far too often the American labor movement has featured whitesupremacist forces in defining roles; that trend unquestionably played a rolein Randolph’s and others’ formationof a 1920s labor union specifically for Black workers. As I hope this wholeweeklong series will indicate, there are many layers to the 1963 March that weneed to better remember, but very high on the list has to be its full name: theMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I’ve often seen Martin Luther KingJr.’s turn in the late 1960stoward economic and laborissues described as a shift in priorities, but in truth the entire CivilRights Movement was founded on a recognition that those issues wereinterconnected with—not the sole emphasis by any means, but an integralcomponent of—ideals like freedom, equality, and justice. Just one more reason toremember the aborted but essential 1941 March on Washington.

Next Marchcontext tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?