Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington

I found an interview with Bayard Rustin from May 8, 1985 on the Black Thought and Culture database. The interview is centered on the events leading up to and during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that occurred on August 28, 1963. Rustin begins the interview with a brief overview of A. Philip Randolph’s beliefs about activism and protests during the 1940s-60s. According to Rustin, Randolph initially planned a march on Washington in 1941-42, but ended preparation after President Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in the national defense industry. Though this was by no means total racial equality in employment, Randolph and the labor organization that he ran viewed the order as a successful step in the right direction. Two decades later, Randolph headed the planning for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but he understood the event as a sort of finality for public protests and mass media coverage. The United States were changing and further racial justices needed to be fought in the field of economics. Randolph knew that voting rights and education rights were important, but that “unless we could improve the economic status, which would be done through jobs, those freedoms could never really be exercised.” Economics were, and remain, a driving force in access to these things, and so long as African Americans were systemically denied economic equality, they would continue to lack educational and political equality.

Though these were Randolph’s intentions going into the march, the clear message of economic advancement was muddled after President Kennedy announced the civil rights bill. After the bill went public, the march pivoted to a message of “pass the bill” rather than “advance black economic opportunities.” The march that Randolph painstakingly planned to address the primary issue that he saw plaguing the African American community was quickly turned into yet another civil rights demonstration. 18 months later, the Randolph Institute released “A Freedom Budget for All Americans,” which aimed to address economic problems facing the African American community, but by then the moment had passed and the proposal was ultimately unsuccessful.

This interview shows to us how the March on Washington melded into the event that we all know. What started out as a rally for economic justice changed into one for civil rights, the one thing its primary organizer feared it would become. It also brings up interesting questions about what could have happened. What would have happened to the March’s message if the Civil Rights Act hadn’t been announced? Would we have legislation that mirrors the “Freedom Budget?”

Source: https://bltc.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/getobject.pl?c.206:1.bltc.2426.2432.2435.2446.2450