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Fair Employment Practice Committee
The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to implement Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work." That was shortly before the United States entered World War II. The executive order also required federal vocational and training programs to be administered without discrimination. Established in the Office of Production Management, the FEPC was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in home front industries during World War II. In practice, especially in its later years, the committee also tried to open up more skilled jobs in industry to minorities, who had often been restricted to lowest-level work. The FEPC appeared to have contributed to substantial economic improvements among black men during the 1940s by helping them gain entry to more skilled and higher-paying positions in defense-related industries.
In January 1942 after the US entry into World War II, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9040 to establish the War Production Board, which replaced the Office of Production Management and put the FEPC under it answering to the War Manpower Commission. The new board, concentrating on converting the domestic economy to a wartime footing, slashed the committee's limited budget.
In response to strong support for the FEPC and a threatened march on the capital, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9346 in May 1943, which gave the FEPC independent status within the Office of the President, established 16 regional offices, and widened its jurisdiction to all federal agencies, in addition to those directly involved in defense. It was put within the president's Office of Emergency Management. Analysis of the incomes of blacks who gained entree into the defense industries compared to men outside them showed that they benefited from the higher wages and generally retained their jobs in the early postwar years until 1950.
On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt created the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, generally known as the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) by signing Executive Order 8802, which stated that "there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin." A. Philip Randolph, the founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, had lobbied with other activists for such provisions because of the wide discrimination against African Americans in employment across the country. With the buildup of defense industries for World War II, many African Americans moved to the industrial and urban centers in the North and West during the second phase of the Great Migration in search of jobs and to avoid rampant racial segregation, bigotry, and violence in the rural South. Upon arriving there, they were constantly excluded from applying in the defense industries because of racism and the fear of competition by Northern and Western whites.
With all groups of Americans being asked to support the war effort, Randolph demanded changes in the employment practice of the defense industries. Together with other activists, Rudolph planned to muster tens of thousands of persons for a 1941 March on Washington to protest the continued segregation in the military and discrimination in defense industries. A week before the planned march, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia met with him and other officials to discuss the president's intent to issue an executive order announcing a policy of non-discrimination in federal vocational and training programs. Randolph and his allies convinced him that more was needed, especially directed at the booming defense industries.
President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 to prohibit discrimination among defense firms that had contracts with the government. He established the Fair Employment Practice Committee to implement the policy through education, acceptance of complaints of job discrimination, and work with industry on changing employment practices. The activists called off their march.
After the executive order was signed, Roosevelt appointed Mark Etheridge, a liberal editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, to head the new agency. Etheridge brought "important political connections and public relations expertise to the job" but "emphasized interracial cooperation over equality and refused to challenge the southern system of segregation." Knowing that industry was likely to be hostile, Randolph and other activists believed that the FEPC would depend on workers keeping their own records as to practices at workplaces and taking cases of discrimination to the committee.
The committee had a limited budget of $80,000 in its first year, which was paid from the emergency funds of the Office of the President, which continued to fund it, as for some other agencies created by executive order. Etheridge needed to focus on a few activities in certain areas of the country. He held the first of the FEPC hearings in Los Angeles in October 1941. Some companies admitted they were discriminating based on race when hiring for new job positions, but Etheridge did little to change their practices. That lack of enforcement caused many union leaders, civil rights leaders, government officials, and employers to doubt whether the FEPC and the executive order could produce desired change.
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Fair Employment Practice Committee
The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to implement Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work." That was shortly before the United States entered World War II. The executive order also required federal vocational and training programs to be administered without discrimination. Established in the Office of Production Management, the FEPC was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in home front industries during World War II. In practice, especially in its later years, the committee also tried to open up more skilled jobs in industry to minorities, who had often been restricted to lowest-level work. The FEPC appeared to have contributed to substantial economic improvements among black men during the 1940s by helping them gain entry to more skilled and higher-paying positions in defense-related industries.
In January 1942 after the US entry into World War II, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9040 to establish the War Production Board, which replaced the Office of Production Management and put the FEPC under it answering to the War Manpower Commission. The new board, concentrating on converting the domestic economy to a wartime footing, slashed the committee's limited budget.
In response to strong support for the FEPC and a threatened march on the capital, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9346 in May 1943, which gave the FEPC independent status within the Office of the President, established 16 regional offices, and widened its jurisdiction to all federal agencies, in addition to those directly involved in defense. It was put within the president's Office of Emergency Management. Analysis of the incomes of blacks who gained entree into the defense industries compared to men outside them showed that they benefited from the higher wages and generally retained their jobs in the early postwar years until 1950.
On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt created the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, generally known as the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) by signing Executive Order 8802, which stated that "there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin." A. Philip Randolph, the founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, had lobbied with other activists for such provisions because of the wide discrimination against African Americans in employment across the country. With the buildup of defense industries for World War II, many African Americans moved to the industrial and urban centers in the North and West during the second phase of the Great Migration in search of jobs and to avoid rampant racial segregation, bigotry, and violence in the rural South. Upon arriving there, they were constantly excluded from applying in the defense industries because of racism and the fear of competition by Northern and Western whites.
With all groups of Americans being asked to support the war effort, Randolph demanded changes in the employment practice of the defense industries. Together with other activists, Rudolph planned to muster tens of thousands of persons for a 1941 March on Washington to protest the continued segregation in the military and discrimination in defense industries. A week before the planned march, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia met with him and other officials to discuss the president's intent to issue an executive order announcing a policy of non-discrimination in federal vocational and training programs. Randolph and his allies convinced him that more was needed, especially directed at the booming defense industries.
President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 to prohibit discrimination among defense firms that had contracts with the government. He established the Fair Employment Practice Committee to implement the policy through education, acceptance of complaints of job discrimination, and work with industry on changing employment practices. The activists called off their march.
After the executive order was signed, Roosevelt appointed Mark Etheridge, a liberal editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, to head the new agency. Etheridge brought "important political connections and public relations expertise to the job" but "emphasized interracial cooperation over equality and refused to challenge the southern system of segregation." Knowing that industry was likely to be hostile, Randolph and other activists believed that the FEPC would depend on workers keeping their own records as to practices at workplaces and taking cases of discrimination to the committee.
The committee had a limited budget of $80,000 in its first year, which was paid from the emergency funds of the Office of the President, which continued to fund it, as for some other agencies created by executive order. Etheridge needed to focus on a few activities in certain areas of the country. He held the first of the FEPC hearings in Los Angeles in October 1941. Some companies admitted they were discriminating based on race when hiring for new job positions, but Etheridge did little to change their practices. That lack of enforcement caused many union leaders, civil rights leaders, government officials, and employers to doubt whether the FEPC and the executive order could produce desired change.