Source archive Tier A
Executive Order 8802 (National Archives, Milestone Documents)
Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry, June 25, 1941. National Archives, Milestone Documents. Issued after A. Philip Randolph's threatened March on Washington; Randolph's quoted threat: 'ten, twenty, fifty thousand Negroes on the White House lawn.'
Custody docket
- Record
- national-archives-eo-8802
- Type
- archive
- Trust tier
- A
- Status
- published
Sources are graded A (primary) / B (secondary academic) / C (secondary journalism) / D (tertiary or contested). See the manifesto’s Evidence Standard for full criteria.
The order itself, held by the National Archives, with the Archives’ own milestone framing of the sequence the essay recounts: Randolph organizes the March on Washington Movement, names the number, and the order is signed June 25, 1941 without the march stepping off. The essay’s pull quote is Randolph’s threat as quoted on this page.
Scope of this record, stated plainly. The essay claims the threat produced the order and the march never happened; both halves are carried by this page. It makes no claim about the Fair Employment Practice Committee’s subsequent effectiveness, which historians characterize as limited, especially in the South; that assessment is noted here for the cataloguer and does not appear in the essay.
Provenance
- Creator
- Franklin D. Roosevelt / National Archives and Records Administration
- Published
- 1941
- Accessed
- 2026-08-06
Cited by
Theme custody
No theme record references this source.