BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Pullman porters were men hired to work on the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War,George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Pullman porters served American railroads for 100 years from the late 1860s until late in the 20th Century.
Pullman porters, who were largely black, are widely credited with contributing to the development of the black middle class in America.
Under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, Pullman porters formed the first all-black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Formation of the union, in 1925, was instrumental in the advancement of the Civil Rights Movement.
History
Prior to the 1860s, the concept of sleeping cars on railroads had not been widely developed. George Pullman pioneered sleeping accommodations on trains, and by the late 1860s, he was hiring only African-Americans to serve as porters. After the Civil War ended in 1865 Pullman knew that there was a large pool of former slaves who would be looking for work; he also had a very clear racial conception. He was aware that most Americans, unlike the wealthy, didn’t have personal servants in their homes. Pullman also knew the wealthy were accustomed to being served by a liveried waiter or butler, but to staff the Pullman cars with "properly humble" workers in uniform was something the American middle class had never experienced. Hence, part of the appeal of traveling on sleeping cars was, in a sense, to have an upper class experience. From the very start, porters were featured in Pullman's ads promoting his new sleeper service. Initially, they were one of the features that most clearly distinguished his carriages from those of competitors, but eventually nearly all would follow his lead, hiring African-Americans as porters, cooks, waiters and Red Caps (railway station porters).[1]
While the pay was very low by the standards of the day, in an era of significant racial prejudice, being a Pullman porter was one of the best jobs available for African-American men. Thus, for black men, while this was an opportunity, at the same time it was also an experience of being stereotyped as the servant class and having to take a lot of abuse. Many passengers called every porter “George", as if he were George Pullman’s “boy” (servant), a practice that was born in the South where slaves were named after their slavemasters. The only ones who protested were other men named George, who founded the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George, or SPCSCPG, which eventually claimed 31,000 members.[1] Although the SPCSCPG was more interested in defending the dignity of its white members than in achieving any measure of racial justice, it nevertheless had some effects for all porters. In 1926, the SPCSCPG persuaded the Pullman Company to install small racks in each car, displaying a card with the given name of the porter on duty. Of the 12,000 porters and waiters then working for Pullman, only 362 turned out to be named George. Stanley G. Grizzle, a former Canadian porter, titled his autobiography, My Name's Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.[2]
Porters were not paid a livable wage and needed to rely on tips to earn enough to make a living. Walter Biggs, son of a Pullman porter, spoke of memories of being a Pullman porter as told to him by his father:
The number of porters employed by railroads declined as sleeping car service dwindled in the 1960s and as railroad lines went bankrupt due to competition from the airlines. By 1969, the ranks of the Pullman sleeping car porters had declined to 325 men with an average age of 63.[4]
Duties
A porter was expected to greet passengers, carry baggage, make up the sleeping berths, serve food and drinks, shine shoes, and keep the cars tidy. He needed to be available night and day to wait on the passengers. He was expected to always smile; thus the porters often called the job, ironically, “miles of smiles".[5]
It is not widely known that in the early 1900s, the heyday of luxury travel, the more luxurious trains also had African-American Pullman maids to care for women's needs, especially women with children. They were expected to assist ladies with their bath, be able to give manicures and dress hair, and assist with children.[6][7]
According to historian Greg LeRoy, "A Pullman Porter was really kind of a glorified hotel maid and bellhop in what Pullman called a hotel on wheels. The Pullman Company just thought of the porters as a piece of equipment, just like another button on a panel - the same as a light switch or a fan switch."[8] Porters worked 400 hours a month or 11,000 miles, sometimes as much as 20 hours at a stretch. They were expected to arrive at work several hours early to prepare their car, on their own time; they were charged whenever their passengers stole a towel or a water pitcher. On overnight trips, they were allocated only three to four hours of sleep—and that was deducted from their pay.[8]"It didn't pay a livable wage, but they made a living with the tips that they got, because the salary was nothing," says Lyn Hughes of the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum.[9] The porters were expected to pay for their own meals and uniforms and the company required them to pay for the shoe polish used to shine passengers' shoes daily.[9] There was little job security, and the Pullman Company inspectors were known for suspending porters for trivial reasons.[8]
Characterization
Historian Timuel Black recounts Pullman porters' saying, "They were good looking, clean and immaculate in their dress, their style was quite manly, their language was very carefully crafted, so that they had a sense of intelligence about them ... they were good role models for young men."[3]
According to Larry Tye, who authored Rising from the Rails: The Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, George Pullman was aware that as former chattel slaves, the men he hired had already received the perfect training and "knew just how to take care of any whim that a customer had." Tye further explained that Pullman was aware that there was never a question that a traveler would be embarrassed by running into one of the porters and having them remember something they had done during their trip that they didn't want their wife or husband, perhaps, to know about.[10]
Black historian and journalist Thomas Fleming began his career as a bellhop and then spent five years as a cook for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Fleming was the co-founder and executive editor of Northern California's largest weekly African-American newspaper (Free Press);[11] in a weekly series of articles entitled, "Reflections on Black History", he wrote of the contradictions in the life of a Pullman porter:
In 2008, Amtrak attempted to locate and interview the few remaining living former Pullman porters, all of whom were in their 90s or over 100 years old at that time. The project coordinator remarked, "Even today, observers are struck by how elegant the elderly men are. When we find them, they are dapper. They are men, even at this age, who wear suits and ties.”[13]
Unionization
The Order of Sleeping Car Conductors was organized on February 20, 1918, in Kansas City, Missouri. Members had to be white males.[14] Because the order did not admit blacks,A. Philip Randolph began organizing the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.[15] Using the motto "Fight or Be Slaves", on August 25, 1925, 500 porters met in Harlem and decided to make an effort to organize. Under Randolph's leadership the first black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was formed and slowly working conditions and salaries improved.
By forming the first black labor union the Pullman porters also laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement, which began in the 1950s. Union organizer and former Pullman porter E. D. Nixon played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama in 1955. It was he who bailed Rosa Parks out of jail after she refused to move on the bus, and who selected her as the figure to build the boycott around.[13]
By the 1960s, between the decline of the passenger rail system and the cultural shifts in American society, the Pullman porters' contribution became obscured, becoming for some in the African American community a symbol of subservience to cultural and economic domination.[10]
The Pullman Company went out of business in 1969, and the railroads no longer followed the practice of hiring only black men as porters. In 1978, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters merged with the larger Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks.[16]
Contribution to a black middle class
Many people credit Pullman porters as significant contributors to the development of America's black middle class. In the late 19th century, Pullman porters were among the only people in their communities to travel extensively. Consequently, they became a conduit of new information and ideas from the wider world to their communities. Many Pullman porters supported community projects, including schools, and saved rigorously to ensure that their children were able to obtain an education and thus better employment. Supreme Court JusticeThurgood Marshall and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown were descendants of Pullman porters.[10] Marshall was also a porter himself, as were Malcolm X and the photojournalist Gordon Parks.[17]
A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum
In 1995, Lyn Hughes founded the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum to celebrate both the life of A. Philip Randolph and the role of African Americans in the U.S. labor movement.[18] Located in South Side, Chicago and housed in one of the original rowhouses built by George Pullman to house workers,[19] it is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Pullman National Historic Landmark District. The museum houses a collection of artifacts and documents related to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.[20][21] Additionally, in 2001, the museum compiled a national registry of black railroad employees who worked for the railroad from the late 1800s to 1969.[13][22]
In August 2013, the museum celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (also known as "The Great March on Washington"), one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history.[23] Interviewed in a neighborhood newspaper, Hughes suggested that some people in the Chicago area may prefer to celebrate the anniversary of the march in their own community rather than travel to Washington. He added that many people are unaware that Asa Philip Randolph was the initial activist who inspired the March on Washington Movement.[24][25] Scheduled activities included speakers and screenings of films related to Black labor history. Two organizers said that two former Pullman porters, Milton Jones[26] (age 98) and Benjamin Gaines[27] (age 90), were expected to attend.[24]
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