Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, A. Philip Randolph papers [LC-USZ62-104695]

Rufus Merritt

The Girl Friends of the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) present Asa Philip Randolph with a check for $500, to support its struggle. Randolph was the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African American labor union. The FEPC operated only from 1941 to 1946, and its effectiveness is unclear; but employment of African Americans in the federal government did grow rapidly at that time. Discrimination in defense industries, however, continued in spite of the FEPC, which faced opposition from the South and suffered from bureaucratic inefficiency. The March on Washington Movement continued after the demise of the FEPC, finding renewed expression in the civil rights movement and the March on Washington of 1963.