Fair Employment Practice Committee facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was a special group created in the United States in 1941. Its main job was to stop unfair treatment in jobs, especially for people working in war-related industries. President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the FEPC with something called Executive Order 8802. This order made it illegal for federal agencies, unions, and companies doing war work to discriminate against people based on their race, religion, or background.

This happened just before the United States joined World War II. The FEPC also made sure that government job training programs were open to everyone. It was set up to help African Americans and other minority groups get jobs in factories and businesses that were supporting the war effort. Later, the committee also worked to help minorities get more skilled jobs, not just the lowest-level ones. The FEPC helped many Black men get better-paying jobs in defense industries during the 1940s.

In January 1942, after the US entered World War II, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9040. This order placed the FEPC under a new group called the War Production Board. However, the FEPC's budget was cut, which made its work harder.

Because many people strongly supported the FEPC, and there was a threat of a large protest march in Washington D.C., President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9346 in May 1943. This order made the FEPC more independent. It set up 16 offices across the country and gave the FEPC power over all federal agencies, not just those directly involved in defense. Studies showed that Black men who got jobs in defense industries earned more money and often kept those jobs even after the war, until about 1950.

How the FEPC Started
Early Days and Challenges
Making a Difference in Jobs
Facing Resistance
Changes and Strengthening the FEPC
Its Lasting Impact
See also

How the FEPC Started

On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC). He did this by signing Executive Order 8802. This order clearly said that there should be "no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin."

A key person behind this was A. Philip Randolph. He was the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph and other activists had been pushing for these rules because African Americans faced a lot of job discrimination across the country.

During World War II, many African Americans moved from the South to cities in the North and West. They were looking for jobs in the growing defense industries and wanted to escape unfair treatment and violence in the South. But even in the North and West, they were often stopped from getting defense jobs because of racism.

Randolph believed that if all Americans were asked to support the war, then all Americans should have fair job opportunities. He and other activists planned a huge march on Washington D.C. in 1941. They wanted to protest the continued separation of races in the military and unfair job practices in defense factories.

A week before the march, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia met with Randolph. The President planned to issue an order against discrimination in job training programs. But Randolph and his friends convinced him that more was needed, especially for the booming defense industries.

So, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802. It stopped discrimination among defense companies that had government contracts. He also created the FEPC to make sure this policy was followed. The FEPC would educate people, handle complaints about job discrimination, and work with companies to change their hiring rules. Because of this, the activists called off their march.

An FEPC press conference around 1942.

Early Days and Challenges

After the executive order was signed, Roosevelt chose Mark Etheridge to lead the new FEPC. Etheridge was a newspaper editor. He had good connections and knew how to deal with the public. However, he focused more on different races working together than on true equality. He also didn't want to challenge the system of racial separation in the South.

The FEPC had a very small budget, only $80,000 in its first year. This money came from the President's emergency funds. Etheridge had to pick just a few activities in certain areas. He held the first FEPC meetings in Los Angeles in October 1941. Some companies admitted they were discriminating based on race when hiring. But Etheridge didn't do much to make them change. This lack of action made many people doubt if the FEPC could really make a difference.

During the next meetings in Chicago and New York in early 1942, after the US entered the war, many people supported the FEPC. In these cities, some FEPC staff were influential Black lawyers. They worked closely with activists from groups like the NAACP. Also, in both cities, activists had formed groups to help workers report discrimination. These cities also had strong labor unions, and some union leaders were willing to help change workplaces.

Etheridge then started taking action against companies that had complaints filed against them. For example, in Chicago and Milwaukee, he demanded that companies change their hiring policies to follow the executive order. Companies had to show what changes they made. They also had to send updates to job agencies and report their hiring of minority workers to the FEPC.

The FEPC alone did not end job discrimination in New York or Chicago. But it did help improve things. Progress also depended on government officials and local activists working together to enforce President Roosevelt's order.

Making a Difference in Jobs

Within a year of the executive order, more African Americans and other minorities were hired by defense industries. This was especially true in shipbuilding and aircraft factories. Car factories, which quickly switched to making war supplies, showed the biggest improvement in hiring minorities. These factories already had strong unions. These unions started to encourage companies and white workers to follow the new rules.

For example, in Detroit in 1943, there was a protest strike at the Packard plant. This happened when three Black workers were promoted to work next to white workers. After this, activists and leaders from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) pushed companies harder. They also warned white union members that they could be fired if they refused to work with African Americans.

Facing Resistance

The Fair Employment Practice Committee faced a lot of resistance, especially in the Southern states. In the South, Black people had been prevented from voting for a long time. There were also strict laws called Jim Crow laws that kept races separate in public places.

Local employers, elected officials, and most white workers strongly opposed the FEPC. Civil rights groups were not as powerful in the South. This was because Black people were generally kept out of the political system, even though they made up a large part of the population in many areas.

The FEPC had very little power and a small budget. It also had few ways to make sure its rules were followed. People who opposed the FEPC tried to make it look bad. They questioned if it was legal and even accused it of being linked to communism.

Overall, the FEPC had limited success in stopping racial discrimination during World War II.

Changes and Strengthening the FEPC

By August 1942, President Roosevelt noticed that the FEPC's progress was slowing down. Earlier that year, the FEPC had been put under the control of the War Production Board. This board was created to help change industries to support the war. Some people thought Roosevelt was giving in to pressure from powerful Southern politicians in Congress.

The FEPC chairman, MacLean, protested this change. He said Roosevelt's government was turning the FEPC into "a small Federal bureau without power." A. Philip Randolph said the change was "emasculating" (weakening) the committee's usefulness.

Roosevelt said the change was meant to help the FEPC. But some people believed it actually hurt the committee. For example, the head of the War Manpower Commission cut the FEPC's budget. He also refused requests for office space and didn't help when the FEPC had problems with companies that discriminated. Because of this, important staff members resigned in protest.

Randolph and other activists also protested. They again threatened a march on Washington to pressure the government. In May 1943, Roosevelt made the FEPC stronger with Executive Order 9346. This order made the FEPC independent. It was placed within the President's own office.

The new order required all government contracts to include a rule against discrimination. It also allowed for twelve regional offices and more staff. The FEPC's power was also expanded to include all federal government agencies. During World War II, the government ran many places like airfields, shipyards, and factories that employed millions of people. The FEPC worked until the end of the war, overseeing defense industries and federal agencies.

The FEPC's records show that New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco had the most cases filed. These were major cities with many defense industries.

With the FEPC's help, Black men outside the South made big economic gains in the 1940s. The FEPC helped by:

Giving advice on how to have different races work together.
Giving managers a good reason to hire Black workers if white workers objected.
Threatening to bring in more powerful government agencies if companies didn't cooperate.
Publicly shaming companies or unions that refused to hire Black people.

To try and make the FEPC a permanent part of the government, A. Philip Randolph hired Anna Arnold Hedgeman in 1944. She worked with a group called the National Council to push for this goal. Because of limited money, Hedgeman hired women and college students to help with publicity and fundraising for the FEPC.

She wanted FEPC groups to promote fair job policies in state and local governments. Her staff introduced laws in almost every state, but not many states supported them then. A bill for a nationwide FEPC and anti-discrimination in jobs reached Harry S. Truman after President Roosevelt died in 1945. Truman wanted to support the bill. But by the time World War II ended in August, Congress gave the FEPC some more money but ordered it to stop all operations by June 30, 1946.

During the war, many cities grew quickly because of defense industries. This led to tensions and conflicts in places like Detroit, Los Angeles, Mobile, Alabama, and Beaumont, Texas in 1943. In these cities, new groups of people were competing for jobs and housing. African Americans had rising hopes of sharing in the wartime boom. But in many places, white workers resisted these changes. For example, at the Detroit Packard plant, 25,000 white workers walked off the job in 1943 when three Black workers were promoted to work next to white workers on the assembly line. The FEPC worked to prevent such "hate" strikes and help employers manage the integration of workers. It also helped negotiate solutions when strikes did happen.

Its Lasting Impact

The Fair Employment Practice Committee did not completely end racial discrimination in jobs during World War II. But it did have a lasting effect. It opened some doors for minority workers. More of its cases were about companies refusing to hire people than about unfair working conditions. It seems to have helped Black people get into "industries, firms, and occupations that otherwise might have remained closed to them."

The FEPC's work showed that fair economic opportunities can be achieved through education, protests, self-help, and sometimes, pressure. It gained support from states and the government to fight racial discrimination in jobs. During its short time from 1941 to 1946, the FEPC encouraged other groups with similar goals to form, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

By opening some good-paying jobs in the defense industry, the FEPC created opportunities for African Americans. By 1950, Black men who got jobs in defense were earning 14% more than other men in similar positions outside of defense. The number of Black people in the defense industry did not drop after the war. This suggests that many men had gained important new work.

In 1948, President Truman asked Congress to approve a permanent FEPC and other civil rights laws. However, a group of Southern Democrats in Congress stopped these laws from passing. These Southern Democrats had a lot of power in Congress because Black people in their states were prevented from voting. In 1950, the House of Representatives approved a permanent FEPC bill. But Southern senators used a tactic called a filibuster to block it, and the bill failed. The FEPC was never made into a permanent law by Congress. However, states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Washington successfully passed and enforced their own FEPC laws.