Executive Order 8802

Directive issued in June 1941 by US president Franklin D Roosevelt that prohibited government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, colour, or national origin. It was the first presidential directive on race since Reconstruction, and the first presidential action ever taken to prevent employment discrimination by private employers holding government contracts. The order prohibited discriminatory employment practices by federal agencies and by all unions and companies engaged in war-related work, and it established the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to enforce this policy.

Roosevelt signed the executive order primarily to ensure that there would be no strikes or demonstrations disrupting the manufacture of military supplies as the country prepared for war. The move came as a direct result of efforts by trade union leader Asa Philip Randolph. On the eve of US involvement in World War II, US defence plants had initially resisted hiring blacks. Executive Order 8802 came about after Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened to call for 100,000 black Americans to march in Washington, DC, to protest about job discrimination in the armed services and the defence industry.