"We Die Together. Let's Eat Together."
Rencontre Roosevelt-Randolph (chef du syndicat des porteurs de Sleeping-Cars, et leader du mouvement noir), le 18 juin 1941 :
“Roosevelt opened the session with his customary persiflage, irrelevantly inquiring which Harvard class Randolph was in. “I never went to Harvard, Mr President”, Randolph coolly replied. “Well, Phil, what do you want me to do?” Roosevelt asked at last. "Issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in defense plants", answered Randolph. “You know I can’t do that” said Roosevelt. “In any event I couldn’t do anything unless you called off this march of yours. Questions like this can’t be settled with a sledge hammer.” He was sorry, said Randolph, but without an executive order the march would take place as scheduled. It was not the policy of the president of the United States to be ruled with a gun at his head, Roosevelt declared. “Call it off”, he said curtly, “and we’ll talk again”. But Randolph was no Trotter*, and he calmly stood his ground. Fiorello La Guardia finally broke the impasse. “Gentlemen”, he said, “it is clear that Mr Randolph is not going to call off the march, and I suggest we all begin to seek a formula.” The formula took the shape of Executive Order 8802, issued on June 25, 1941. “There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin”, it declared. […] Ironically, there was no mention of segregation in the armed forces, the issue that had been Randolph’s original concern. Yet the order was a spectacular victory for Randolph and defined a crucial pivot in the history of African-Americans. As one Negro newspaper noted, it “demonstrated to the Doubting Thomases among us that only mass action can pry open the doors that have been erected against America’s black minority”. A rising mood of militancy took hold in the black community. […] The NAACP grew nearly tenfold during the war, to some half a million members. The more militant CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) began in 1942 to mount interracial demonstrations to force the desegregation of restaurants, theatres, and municipal bus lines. Tellingly, picketers outside a Washington DC restaurant in 1944 carried placards that read: “Are you for Hitler’s way or the American Way?” and “We Die Together. Let’s Eat Together.””
Philip Randolph, 1889-1979
David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, Oxford University Press, 1999
* William Monroe Trotter, un leader noir renvoyé par Coolidge sans ménagement en 1925, alors qu’il venait protester contre les lynchages.
“Roosevelt opened the session with his customary persiflage, irrelevantly inquiring which Harvard class Randolph was in. “I never went to Harvard, Mr President”, Randolph coolly replied. “Well, Phil, what do you want me to do?” Roosevelt asked at last. "Issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in defense plants", answered Randolph. “You know I can’t do that” said Roosevelt. “In any event I couldn’t do anything unless you called off this march of yours. Questions like this can’t be settled with a sledge hammer.” He was sorry, said Randolph, but without an executive order the march would take place as scheduled. It was not the policy of the president of the United States to be ruled with a gun at his head, Roosevelt declared. “Call it off”, he said curtly, “and we’ll talk again”. But Randolph was no Trotter*, and he calmly stood his ground. Fiorello La Guardia finally broke the impasse. “Gentlemen”, he said, “it is clear that Mr Randolph is not going to call off the march, and I suggest we all begin to seek a formula.” The formula took the shape of Executive Order 8802, issued on June 25, 1941. “There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin”, it declared. […] Ironically, there was no mention of segregation in the armed forces, the issue that had been Randolph’s original concern. Yet the order was a spectacular victory for Randolph and defined a crucial pivot in the history of African-Americans. As one Negro newspaper noted, it “demonstrated to the Doubting Thomases among us that only mass action can pry open the doors that have been erected against America’s black minority”. A rising mood of militancy took hold in the black community. […] The NAACP grew nearly tenfold during the war, to some half a million members. The more militant CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) began in 1942 to mount interracial demonstrations to force the desegregation of restaurants, theatres, and municipal bus lines. Tellingly, picketers outside a Washington DC restaurant in 1944 carried placards that read: “Are you for Hitler’s way or the American Way?” and “We Die Together. Let’s Eat Together.””
Philip Randolph, 1889-1979
David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, Oxford University Press, 1999
* William Monroe Trotter, un leader noir renvoyé par Coolidge sans ménagement en 1925, alors qu’il venait protester contre les lynchages.
posted by ML at 6:02 PM
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