1940's Government and Politics | Civil Rights

The March On Washington Movement.

The modern civil rights movement has its origins in the early 1940s, as civil rights organizers used the Roosevelt administration's condemnation of the Nazis' racist ideology as an opportunity to accuse Roosevelt of being all too tolerant of racism in America. In January 1941, nearly a year before Pearl Harbor, A. Philip Randolph called for a massive 1 July March On Washington to shake up white America. As head of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Randolph was a powerful labor leader who could mobilize the black masses in ways that middle-class organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) could not. The NAACP stressed legal action; Randolph urged direct action. The NAACP welcomed whites, while the March On Washington Movement (MOWM) excluded them, though not for racist reasons. While separatist in structure, the MOWM had integration...