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.

6. 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 Negro’s relation to America. To put if briefly, and somewhat too simply, a certain hope died, a certain respect for white Americans faded.”

7. 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 NAACP’s 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 nation’s capital. The MOWM movement and the organization of that name is born. • On Valentine’s 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 nation’s capital

10. FDR FAILS TO THE HALT THE MOWM MARCH: HIS OPTIONS AND HIS COMPROMISES • June 13, 1941, meeting in Mayor La Guardia’s 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, 1941“March” 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 Tom’s 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.