Lyndon Johnson Signs Executive Order 11246
What Happened
On September 24, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, prohibiting federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin — and, for the first time, requiring them to 'take affirmative action' to ensure that applicants and employees were treated without regard to those characteristics. The order extended the promise of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed the year before, into the vast sector of the American economy that did business with the federal government, and enforcement was placed with the Department of Labor. In 1967 the order was amended to add sex discrimination.
Why It Matters Today
Executive Order 11246 made affirmative action a legal obligation of the American workplace. Because the federal government was the nation's largest customer, its contract requirements reached tens of millions of jobs — the single most powerful desegregation tool aimed at the private economy. For two generations the order shaped hiring, promotion, and opportunity across the country; the story of Black economic progress after 1965 cannot be told without it.
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