Railroad Industry
Pullman Porters: Pioneers of the Railway Labor and Civil Rights Movements
American railroads have played an important role in the history of this country’s civil rights movement. Following abolition, one of the few white employers in the U.S. willing to hire African Americans was the Pullman Sleeping Car Company, founded by George Pullman. The Pullman Company was a popular provider of sleeping car services, equipment and employees, having contracted with most American Railroad Companies of the time.
The company hired ex-slaves and, on one hand, the Pullman Company could be commended for employing them. However, it was criticized over time for under-paying those employees, and creating a lifestyle of servitude and dependency on the generosities of wealthier white passengers. The rationale used at the time encouraged the highest levels of personal service towards tipping passengers allowing Pullman to keep its salary costs low. As a result, the porter was forced into financial dependency on the tips from his customer.
The early Pullman Porters themselves undertook the job and its hardships as a unique opportunity to interact with and learn about the white world. They could read discarded newspapers, books and magazines that were not commonly available to them at home, and even circulate information to other African Americans living along train routes. Among other accomplishments, they were a major source of information and contributors to the distribution of early Black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender that they personally handled while on the job.
Other financial problems plagued the porter as well. Pullman Company policies held the porter financially responsible for lost or stolen linen, silverware, etc; and the porter was always at risk of dismissal resulting from complaints from white passengers. By 1920, working conditions were such that a growing number of porters were looking for ways to unionize themselves for better pay and working conditions, which they finally achieved in 1937. The resulting union, known as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, finally allowed the employees to negotiate salary and working conditions with the Pullman Company and also played a major role in the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s. Porters supported and helped organize activities throughout this period including anti-lynching campaigns; freedom rides; the boycotts in Montgomery , Ala. ; and the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. , that featured Dr. Martin Luther King.
Pullman Porters are an American success story. They strove to improve living and working conditions for African Americans as a whole, and helped finance many of the personal accomplishments and dreams of the sons and daughters that followed them.
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters merged with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC) in 1978.
RELATED READING : RISING FROM THE RAILS; PULLMAN PORTERSAND THE MAKING OF THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS – 1 st Edition; by Larry Tye; Henry Holt and Co. New York , NY . 2004.
Also: Movie; 10,000 Black Men Named George, about Union activist Asa Philip Randolph's efforts to organize the black porters of the Pullman Rail Company in 1920s America.
Directed by Robert Townsend |
