to increase within the black communities and because of the threat of a march on Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order on June 25, 1941. This order directed African Americans to be accepted into job-training programs in defense plants. The order also stated that employers holding defense contracts would not except discrimination. It also set up a fair employment practice commissions to investigate charges of racial discrimination. Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower continued to enforce fair employment legislation after Roosevelts policies because Congress was unwilling to do so. In 1954, the supreme court decision Brown v. Board of Education pressured both houses of Congress and the executive office to take some positive steps on behalf of civil rights. In January 1961, John F. Kennedy took office. Almost immediately Roy Wilkins of the NAACP called for action to promote employment opportunities for African Americans. John F. Kennedy responded with executive order 10925, which created a presidential commission on equal employment opportunity; it also mandated federal contractors to take Affirmative Action to ensure that there would be no discrimination by race, creed, color or nationality. This was not the first time that the government ordered it own contractors not only to avoid discrimination, but also to take positive steps to redress the effects of discrimination in society. In some cases contractors were asked to pay employees doing similar work, the same amount of pay. Without congressional action an executive order could only last so long and in 1963 Kennedy secured passage of the Equal Pay Act. The Equal Pay Act prohibited employers from paying women less than men for the same work pay. A short time later due to the assassination of Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson called for the passage of the Civil Rights Bill as a memorial to the late president Kennedy. Lyndon B. Johnson skillfully guided and expanded...
