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Difficulty: MediumWorld War II: Mobilization and Social Impact

"We call upon you to march on Washington, D.C.... for jobs and equal participation in national defense... Dear fellow citizens, our fight is not against individuals, but against a system—a system that denies us the right to work in the very industries funded by our tax dollars, and denies us the right to fight under the flag of our country on equal terms. If the federal government does not act to guarantee equal opportunity in defense contracts, we must make our voices heard."
— A. Philip Randolph, "Call to Negro America to March on Washington," 1941

The activism described in the excerpt most directly led to which of the following federal responses?

  1. A
    The expansion of peacetime New Deal public works programs to guarantee permanent federal jobs for minority agricultural workers.
  2. B
    The adoption of a laissez-faire policy that prohibited federal intervention in private defense industry hiring practices.
  3. The issuance of an executive order banning racial discrimination in government defense industries.Answer
  4. D
    The passage of neutrality legislation designed to restrict trade with foreign nations that practiced institutional segregation.

Answer

The issuance of an executive order banning racial discrimination in government defense industries.
The correct answer is correct because President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 in response to A. Philip Randolph's threatened March on Washington, establishing the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) to prohibit racial discrimination in defense industries.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the stimulus context and author.
The author is A. Philip Randolph in 1941, calling for a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in defense industries and the military.
Identifying the author and context helps locate the specific historical conflict and response during the transition to wartime mobilization.
2
Evaluate the immediate federal government response to this activism.
To prevent the march and ensure national unity, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 in June 1941.
Executive Order 8802 created the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) to prevent discrimination in defense industries, directly responding to the demands of Randolph and other civil rights leaders.
3
Evaluate the distractors against the historical timeline and concepts.
New Deal programs were peacetime recovery efforts; laissez-faire policies were not maintained; and the Neutrality Acts were diplomatic measures unrelated to domestic labor discrimination.
Eliminating options that conflate different eras or misrepresent government economic and foreign policies confirms the correct option.

Key Concept

Wartime mobilization prompted federal actions that expanded economic opportunities for minorities while responding to civil rights advocacy.
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World War II: Mobilization and Social Impact

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