The Cause of Freedom by Jonathan Scott Holloway

Author:Jonathan Scott Holloway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Framed by the columns of the Lincoln Memorial, Marian Anderson was a regal, elegant presence as she sang to a vast audience on the National Mall on Easter Sunday, 1939. Although she looks strikingly alone in this photograph, she would later recall that when she looked out, “there seemed to be people as far as the eye could see.” Thomas D. McAvoy/The LIFE Picture Collection, Getty Images.

African American leaders used this dynamic to their advantage. Consider A. Philip Randolph. In 1917, Randolph cofounded the Messenger, a magazine calling for radical black socialist leadership. In 1925, he became head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, where he advocated for better working conditions and higher wages. Although Randolph’s radicalism was often unpopular, this effort earned support from the NAACP, the Urban League, and the American Federation of Labor. Randolph became the country’s most significant black labor leader.

In 1940, Randolph and other black leaders met with President Roosevelt to call for the desegregation of the military and for blacks to have access to defense industry jobs. Roosevelt ignored them, wary of losing southern Democrats’ political support. In response, Randolph proposed a march on Washington, to take place in July 1941. His plan garnered enormous enthusiasm and an anticipated attendance of one hundred thousand. Just before the proposed march, Roosevelt made a deal with Randolph: he would issue an executive order meeting Randolph’s demands if Randolph canceled the march.

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