Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941–1946 by David Lucander (review)

As the Chicago Defender reported on February 8, 1941, renowned civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph “[c]ontend[ed] that power and pressure do not reside in the few”; instead, “They lie in and flow from the masses. . . . Power is the active principle of only the organized masses, the masses united for a definite purpose.” David Lucander’s groundbreaking study embodies this statement and moves our understanding of the 1940s March on Washington Movement (MOWM) beyond its noted leader and the abandoned protest, to discuss the sustained commitment of “grassroots activists who energized the organization and used it to tackle issues in their hometowns” (p. 25). In Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941–1946, Lucander skillfully demonstrates how Randolph’s threat to have a mass demonstration in the nation’s capital captured the imagination of local black activists during the World War II era and inspired them to use the ideals of the “Double V campaign . . . to agitate for change” in local communities (p. 15). In particular, Lucander highlights the interaction between MOWM’s grassroots activists and its national officials through his detailed discussions of the organization’s most active chapter in St. Louis, Missouri, revealing how working-class African Americans used MOWM’s platform to interject issues of economic and labor discrimination into the national political discourse during the Franklin D. Roosevelt years.

Winning the War for Democracy is organized chronologically and thematically into six chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 chronicle “in greater detail than any other existing account” the MOWM from Randolph’s initial threat to the march’s eventual cancellation (p. 20). Lucander smartly begins the book by discussing what many have perceived as the culminating victories of the MOWM: Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 8802 and the establishment of the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC). Lucander also tackles Randolph’s controversial decision to abandon the march and the criticism he received from black leaders who viewed Randolph’s decision as a concession.

In chapter 2 Lucander details the MOWM’s “transition from an ad hoc organization into a FEPC watchdog that used pressure politics to ensure that Executive Order 8802 would be implemented” (p. 51). He also highlights the emerging rivalry between Randolph and the leading officials in the NAACP who viewed the MOWM as a competitor after it became clear that the MOWM intended to become a permanent organization. However, Lucander is at his best in chapters 3 through 6 when he tells the story of the grassroots organizers, who did not get tangled in the disputes between Randolph and the NAACP, but instead staged meetings, public prayer demonstrations, rallies, marches, and other protests against several businesses with federal defense contracts in St. Louis. He argues that local MOWM leaders, such as T. D. McNeal, David Grant, Layle Lane, Pauline Myers, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman, often organized and led campaigns independent from the MOWM’s national office and proved to be the “lifeblood” of the organization (p. 6). Lucander thoughtfully uses the St. Louis charter to provide an intimate portrayal of how the MOWM’s local branches “prodded the federal government into allowing minority groups greater access into American workplaces” (p. 176).

Winning the War for Democracy is impeccably researched. Lucander has examined dozens of manuscript collections, from those of local activists to the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Papers. The book is plainly written and accessible. Lucander’s insightful perspective and sharp analysis guarantee that this book will become essential reading for graduate students, historians, and other scholars of the black labor movement during the early civil rights struggle.