Who was the leader who first threatened to march on Washington to demand civil rights protections for African Americans?

• A. Philip Randolph
• B. Martin Luther King Jr.
• C. Booker T. Washington
• D. Thurgood Marshall

Answer: (A)

Philip Randolph led the push that first threatened a March on Washington to press for civil rights protections. As head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, he announced plans for a mass protest in 1941 to demand an end to racial discrimination in defense industries and in federal policy. The pressure from that threat helped push President Franklin D. Roosevelt to take action, leading to Executive Order 8802, which banned discriminatory practices in defense work and laid the groundwork for the Fair Employment Practices Committee.

Martin Luther King Jr. is later remembered for the 1963 march and his leadership in the civil rights movement, but he did not initiate the first threat to march on Washington. Booker T. Washington and Thurgood Marshall were influential figures in their own rights, but neither organized or threatened a march on Washington to secure civil rights protections in that early, pivotal way.