III. Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training

"I can think of no greater set-back for Negro Americans than a permanent jimcrow draft, even if simultaneously Congress should enact FEPC legislation, an anti-lynching bill and every other measure necessary to implement the recommendations of the President's Committee on Civil Rights."

-A. Philip Randolph

While many organizations (the NAACP, the black press, and others) contributed in major and minor part to the eventual issuance of Executive Order 9981, A. Philip Randolph, President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, has rightfully been given the most credit for forcing President Truman's hand. In no insignificant way, Randolph's efforts may be seen as a continuance of his March on Washington Movement, the demands of which were only partially met by *97Executive Order 8802. It must be understood at the outset that Randolph's tactics of agitation and confrontation differed from those of the mainstream civil rights activists of the period. The path chosen by the NAACP was one of orderly petitioning of the government for redress of racial grievances, using the court system as its primary tool and the legislature and executive branches as secondary (and often ineffective) alternatives. Randolph's Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, with its threat of mass action and civil disobedience in the form of a refuse-the-draft campaign, was a harbinger of a new civil rights movement, the likes of which would be seen again in the 1 960s. An eval-uation of events immediately preceding the announcement of Executive Order 9981 is necessary before examining Randolph's contribution.