A. Philip Randolph: “Call to Negro America to March on Washington”

Audience

The audience for Randolph’s “Call to Negro America to March on Washington for Jobs and Equal Participation in National Defense” was clear. The document was addressed to African Americans, in particular African American workers, urging them to participate in a march on Washington, D.C., to demand equality in the defense industries and in the military. Clearly, too, the audience for the document was the federal government, in particular, President Franklin Roosevelt, as part of a campaign to pressure him to take steps to end segregation in the defense industries and in the military. Roosevelt heard the message: Just a month after the document appeared in Black Worker (a journal Randolph founded and that was in essence a continuation of the earlier journal The Messenger), the president agreed to meet with Randolph to discuss the proposed march on Washington.