Executive Order 8802, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, called for an end to discrimination in employment practices by the government and by defense contractors because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), the first federal agency devoted to civil rights since Reconstruction. Although responding chiefly to the circumstances and demands of Aerican Americans, the executive order applied to white ethnic groups as well.
Discrimination against blacks in defense industry and the armed forces in the early stages of the mobilization effort of World War II produced protests from black leaders and efforts to change existing policy and practices. A. Philip Randolph organized the March on Washington Movement (MOWM) early in 1941 to demand equal opportunity. He insisted that Roosevelt take tangible action or see 100,000 African Americans march on Washington to protest for change and a fair share in the war effort.
Roosevelt, worried also about discrimination against white immigrants with skills needed in defense production, and concerned that such a march might be embarrassing to the country, eventually responded by issuing Executive Order 8802. In addition to stating that “there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in the defense industries or government because of race, creed, color or national origin,” the executive order went on to say that both employers and labor unions had a responsibility “to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in the defense industries” and mandated that all further defense contracts contain a clause prohibiting discrimination. Perhaps the most important section of the executive order was the creation of the FEPC to investigate complaints and take remedial action. Although the order did not apply to the military, as Randolph and other black leaders had desired, the march on Washington was not held.
Executive Order 8802 and the FEPC helped to bring new opportunity to black Americans and to reduce job discrimination against other minority groups. During World War II, the number of African-American civilians employed by the federal government more than tripled, to some 200,000, while the proportion of blacks in defense industry jobs rose from 3 to 8 percent. Insufficient authority for penalizing noncompliance and an inadequate budget nonetheless limited the FEPC, and black employment gains came to a significant degree from the labor shortage created by the millions of men who joined the armed forces. Other problems, such as the continued practice of hiring blacks only for menial jobs and the denial of necessary training for advancement, eventually led to stronger support from Roosevelt. Whatever its limitations, Executive Order 8802 set a new precedent for government involvement in civil rights and helped encourage a new public responsibility among leaders of American industry.
See also race and racial conelict.
Further reading: Herbert Garfinkel, When Negroes March: The March on Washington Movement in the Organizational Politics for FEPC (New York: Atheneum, 1969); Paula F. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990).
—Ronald G. Simon
World History
