12,000 In Chicago Voice Demands For Democracy, p. 1
Dublin Core
Title
12,000 In Chicago Voice Demands For Democracy, p. 1
Description
"Exercising the democratic rights afforded them under the Constitution, the “March-On-Washington” committee held an historic meeting in Chicago Friday night.
The event brought 12,000 people to the world famous Coliseum to give a deafening ovation to a ringing demand by Philip A. Randolph, Walter White and Milton Webster for the right of Negroes to participate equally in the defense program.
The aggregation which overflowed into the street several thousand, represented a cross section of the Negro community. As such it received the respective offerings on the program with good natured humor, ironical laughter, boos, and deafening applause.
The crowd, being made up of an overwhelming number of working men and women responded with applause to every criticism of discrimination against Negroes in defense industry and in the armed forces of the nation.
It seemed thunder-like applause would bring down the roof when in a play written for the meeting, a young Negro draftee shouted:
“Why were Negroes barred from Australia until the Japs started dropping bombs there?”
“Against Southern Crackers”
Another draftee told his draft board official, “Yes sir, I am against them Japs. I’m against them Germans, them Italians - and I’m also against them Negro hating crackers down South.” The pandemonium which greeted this declaration is indescribable.
Standing before the cheering crowd, Walter White, executive secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., electrified them with: “We Negroes must fight for the right to fight to make the world cafe for democracy.”
A few minutes later Milton P. Webster, vice president of the Sleeping Car Porters, and member of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practices, declared in his typically agressive [sic] manner that the Committee on Fair Employment Practices is breaking down employment barriers in defense industries in an effective and encouraging manner: and that the very existence of the committee results of “pressure,” the organized determination of a minority to make itself felt. Over 2,000 Negroes have been placed in the aircraft industry alone, he said.
Webster also reported that the United States Employment Service and the United States Office of Education had been refusing to train or refer Negroes to jobs on the assumption that employers would not hire them.
“We told the office of education that it is its job to train Negroes; we’ll find the jobs.”
In summary, Webster announced that CoFEP at a Washington hearing would fully investigate the systematic discharge of Negro locomotive firemen because of their labor.
Denounces Reactionary Congress
Walter White of the N.A.A.C.P. charged that the legislative branch of the Federal government is under the control of reactionary senators and representative from the south. These men, White argued, whose very power is based upon disfranchisement and mob rule, block every effort to improve the lot of Negroes in the U.S.
“Thus, today, the south with only a little over one-fourth of the population of the United States, holds more than 50 percent of the chairmanships in the United States House of Representatives and Senate. They have achieved this under a Democratic administration through the ease by which demagogues can get themselves elected and reelected with ridiculous ease through the rotten borough system of the south…”
“In the light of the control of our government by these men who spit upon democracy whenever the Negro is involved, is there any wonder that meetings like this are tragically necessary at a time like this? Or that, irony of ironies, we Negroes must fight for the right to fight when the world is threatened with destruction.”
Asks End of Discrimination
In an address marked by unusual eloquence and fighting spirit, Randolph, leader of the March-to-Washington movement and international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, hailed Roosevelt as a champion of democracy, declared democracy in the United States a miserable failure; and then called upon President Roosevelt to abolish discrimination in the armed forces.
“If the President does not issue a war proclamation to abolish jim-crow [sic] in Washington, the District of Columbia and all government departments and the armed forces. Negroes are going to march and we don’t give a damn what happens,” Ranolph [sic] asserted.
He said he has no personal ambitions for himself, but that it is “better that Negroes face extermination than a life of segregation with its degradation and bitter humiliation. Rather we die standing on our feet fighting for our rights than to exist upon our knees begging for life.”
It was Randolph’s view that democracy cannot continue “with a first clas [sic] and second-class citizenship with one section of the country free to vote and another section disfranchised by the poll tax and white primaries.
Randolph declared it is the Negro’s responsibility to fight for his rights now. Surely Negroes can’t be expected to fight for democracy in Burma, when the don’t have it in Birmingham.
“History shows that Jews must depend upon Jews to fight the battles of Jews; Catholics must depend upon Catholics to fight the battles of Catholics; women must depend upon women to fight the battles of women; Negroes must depend upon Negroes to fight the battles of Negroes.”"
The event brought 12,000 people to the world famous Coliseum to give a deafening ovation to a ringing demand by Philip A. Randolph, Walter White and Milton Webster for the right of Negroes to participate equally in the defense program.
The aggregation which overflowed into the street several thousand, represented a cross section of the Negro community. As such it received the respective offerings on the program with good natured humor, ironical laughter, boos, and deafening applause.
The crowd, being made up of an overwhelming number of working men and women responded with applause to every criticism of discrimination against Negroes in defense industry and in the armed forces of the nation.
It seemed thunder-like applause would bring down the roof when in a play written for the meeting, a young Negro draftee shouted:
“Why were Negroes barred from Australia until the Japs started dropping bombs there?”
“Against Southern Crackers”
Another draftee told his draft board official, “Yes sir, I am against them Japs. I’m against them Germans, them Italians - and I’m also against them Negro hating crackers down South.” The pandemonium which greeted this declaration is indescribable.
Standing before the cheering crowd, Walter White, executive secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., electrified them with: “We Negroes must fight for the right to fight to make the world cafe for democracy.”
A few minutes later Milton P. Webster, vice president of the Sleeping Car Porters, and member of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practices, declared in his typically agressive [sic] manner that the Committee on Fair Employment Practices is breaking down employment barriers in defense industries in an effective and encouraging manner: and that the very existence of the committee results of “pressure,” the organized determination of a minority to make itself felt. Over 2,000 Negroes have been placed in the aircraft industry alone, he said.
Webster also reported that the United States Employment Service and the United States Office of Education had been refusing to train or refer Negroes to jobs on the assumption that employers would not hire them.
“We told the office of education that it is its job to train Negroes; we’ll find the jobs.”
In summary, Webster announced that CoFEP at a Washington hearing would fully investigate the systematic discharge of Negro locomotive firemen because of their labor.
Denounces Reactionary Congress
Walter White of the N.A.A.C.P. charged that the legislative branch of the Federal government is under the control of reactionary senators and representative from the south. These men, White argued, whose very power is based upon disfranchisement and mob rule, block every effort to improve the lot of Negroes in the U.S.
“Thus, today, the south with only a little over one-fourth of the population of the United States, holds more than 50 percent of the chairmanships in the United States House of Representatives and Senate. They have achieved this under a Democratic administration through the ease by which demagogues can get themselves elected and reelected with ridiculous ease through the rotten borough system of the south…”
“In the light of the control of our government by these men who spit upon democracy whenever the Negro is involved, is there any wonder that meetings like this are tragically necessary at a time like this? Or that, irony of ironies, we Negroes must fight for the right to fight when the world is threatened with destruction.”
Asks End of Discrimination
In an address marked by unusual eloquence and fighting spirit, Randolph, leader of the March-to-Washington movement and international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, hailed Roosevelt as a champion of democracy, declared democracy in the United States a miserable failure; and then called upon President Roosevelt to abolish discrimination in the armed forces.
“If the President does not issue a war proclamation to abolish jim-crow [sic] in Washington, the District of Columbia and all government departments and the armed forces. Negroes are going to march and we don’t give a damn what happens,” Ranolph [sic] asserted.
He said he has no personal ambitions for himself, but that it is “better that Negroes face extermination than a life of segregation with its degradation and bitter humiliation. Rather we die standing on our feet fighting for our rights than to exist upon our knees begging for life.”
It was Randolph’s view that democracy cannot continue “with a first clas [sic] and second-class citizenship with one section of the country free to vote and another section disfranchised by the poll tax and white primaries.
Randolph declared it is the Negro’s responsibility to fight for his rights now. Surely Negroes can’t be expected to fight for democracy in Burma, when the don’t have it in Birmingham.
“History shows that Jews must depend upon Jews to fight the battles of Jews; Catholics must depend upon Catholics to fight the battles of Catholics; women must depend upon women to fight the battles of women; Negroes must depend upon Negroes to fight the battles of Negroes.”"
Creator
George F. McCray
Publisher
The Chicago Defender
Date
1942-7-4
Collection
Citation
George F. McCray, “12,000 In Chicago Voice Demands For Democracy, p. 1,” African American Fourth of July, accessed April 28, 2024, https://africanamerican4th.omeka.net/items/show/73.