March On Washington Movement - Chronology

Chronology

Early lobbying efforts to desegregate the military previous to 1941 did not persuade President Roosevelt to take action. On September 27, 1940, the first delegation composed of A. Philip Randolph, Walter White (NAACP), and T. Arnold Hill (National Urban League), met with President Roosevelt and members of topmost governmental levels. The delegation presented a memorandum demanding immediate integration of all blacks in the armed services. The response was a White House issued statement that “the policy of the War Department is not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations.”

These types of public statements made clear the relative ineffectiveness of traditional means of pressuring the government. On January 25th, 1941, A. Philip Randolph officially proposed a March on Washington to “highlight the issue.”

In the following months, chapters of the MOWM began to organize for a mass march scheduled for July first of that year. Predictions during the spring had the number of marchers at about 100,000.

Just a week before the march was to take place, an “alarmed President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, establishing the first Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC).” Mayor La Guardia of New York City met with MOWM leadership and informed them of the President’s intentions.

Before the order was signed, the MOWM demanded, in addition to the establishment of the FEPC, that war industries would be desegregated. FDR agreed and issued Executive Order 8802. This was a major victory for the movement, and so Randolph agreed to cancel the march. He continued the March on Washington Movement as a way of holding the FEPC to its mission.

The MOWM continued rallies throughout the summer, but the high water mark had passed. The Movement’s continued call for nonviolent civil disobedience alienated some black organizations, such as the NAACP, who withdrew some of its support for the MOWM. Despite the movement’s creation as a tool to fuel a specific march on Washington, the MOWM existed until 1947, organizing with other groups to continue pressures on the federal government.