By David Lucander

Students regard the March on Washington flow (MOWM) as a forerunner of the postwar Civil Rights circulation. Led by means of the charismatic A. Philip Randolph, MOWM scored an early victory while it pressured the Roosevelt management to factor a landmark government order that prohibited protection contractors from working towards racial discrimination.

Winning the battle for Democracy: The March on Washington flow, 1941-1946 remembers that triumph, but in addition seems past Randolph and the MOWM's nationwide management to target the organization's evolution and activities on the neighborhood point. utilizing the non-public papers of formerly unheralded MOWM participants akin to T.D. McNeal, inner govt records from the Roosevelt management, and different basic resources, David Lucander highlights how neighborhood associates scuffling with for a double victory opposed to fascism and racism helped the nationwide MOWM accrue the political capital it had to influence change.

Lucander info the efforts of grassroots organizers to enforce MOWM's software of empowering African american citizens through conferences and marches at protection crops and executive constructions and, particularly, makes a speciality of the contributions of ladies activists like Layle Lane, E. Pauline Myers, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman. all through he exhibits how neighborhood actions usually diverged from rules laid out at MOWM's nationwide place of work, and the way grassroots members on each side neglected the competition among Randolph and the management of the NAACP to align with each other at the floor.

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Extra resources for Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941–1946

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4 percent. 57 It looked as if African Americans were going to be among the last hired, if they were hired at all. In an essay written several years after the war, James Baldwin powerfully described the emotional reaction of living in the frustrating racial economy that these numbers portrayed. “The treatment accorded the Negro during the Second World War,” Baldwin wrote, “marks for me, a turning point in the Negro’s relation to America. 59 James E. Shepard, president of the North Carolina College for Negroes, What Happens When Negroes Don’t March?

107 The Civil Rights Movement occupies a special place in the history of African American strivings for equality, but this era was not the only vibrant period of agitation against racism. Those who were involved in the years prior to 1954 defined the struggle as something more than obtaining voting rights, equal access to public accommodations, and the end of segregation. For many, economic opportunity, social mobility, and the ability to live with dignity were just as important. 108 “Long movement” historians have challenged the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v.

Randolph’s speeches struck a chord because they emphasized cooperative self-reliance and racial solidarity, while MOWM’s message of civic engagement and political organizing gave substance to a program of confrontational protest. 20 “African Americans made two important discoveries in World War II,” writes historian Robert A.  .  . 24 Launched in 1942, the Courier’s wildly popular Double V campaign linked the fight against international fascism with the need to topple racism on America’s home front.

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