In May 1941, as it became clear that the U.S. would probably be entering World War II, black labor leader A. Philip Randolph and other activists founded the March on Washington Movement (MOWM). They called for a mass march on the nation's capital to…
This poster, from A. Philip Randolph's planned March on Washington in 1941, illustrates several issues central to the march. The threat of a large-scale public protest persuaded President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802, which banned racially…
Pauli Murray entered law school in 1941 with the "single-minded intention of destroying Jim Crow." Though on the frontlines of civil rights demonstrations and behind the scenes of many organizational meetings since the 1940s, Murray and other…