who tried to prevent the march on washington
March on Washington Movement The March on Washington Movement (MOWM), 1941â€“1946, organized by activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin[1] as a tool to produce a mass march on Washington, D.C., was designed to pressure the U.S. government into desegregating the armed forces and providing fair working opportunities for African Americans. When President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 in 1941, prohibiting discrimination in the defense industry under contract to federal agencies, Randolph and collaborators called off the march.
History of Washington, D.C. The United States capital was originally located in Philadelphia, beginning with the First and Second Continental Congress, followed by the Congress of the Confederation upon gaining independence. In June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall to demand payment for their service during the American Revolutionary War. Congress requested that John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey, on June 21, 1783.[13] Dickinson's failure to protect the institutions of the national government was discussed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787[citation needed]. The delegates therefore agreed in Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to give the Congress the power: