|
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was a labor union in the United States organized by the predominantly African-American Pullman Porters. Organized in 1925, it struggled for twelve years before winning its first collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company. A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers...
Languages Predominantly American English Religions Christianity (predominantly Baptist), Islam Related ethnic groups Sub-Saharan Africans and other African groups, some with Native American groups. ...
The Pullman Palace Car Company, owned by George Pullman, manufactured railroad train cars in the mid to late 1800s through the early decades of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. ...
1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar). ...
The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is the contract between the NHL and the NHLPA that defines the structure of procedural, financial, and disciplinary relationships between the NHL, its teams, and its players. ...
The streamlined Pullman observation-lounge car Coconino, coupled to a heavyweight sleeper painted in two-tone Pullman grey, brings up the rear of the Santa Fe Railways Chief at La Junta, Colorado on February 27, 1938. ...
It was, in 1935 the first labor organization led by African-Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. It merged in 1978 with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC), now known as the Transportation Communications International Union. 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ...
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. ...
1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...
The Transportation Communications International Union or TCU is the successor to the union formerly known as the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks and includes within it many other organizations, including the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters that have merged with it since 1969. ...
The leaders of the BSCP—including A. Philip Randolph, its first president, and C. L. Dellums, its vice president and the uncle of U.S. Representative Ron Dellums—became leaders in the civil rights movement and continued to play a significant role in it after it focused on the eradication of segregation in the South. BSCP members such as E. D. Nixon were among the leadership of local civil rights movements by virtue of their organizing experience, constant movement between communities and freedom from economic dependence on local authorities. Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 - May 16, 1979) was a socialist active in the labor movement and the US civil rights movement. ...
C.L. Dellums was one of the organizers and leaders of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. ...
The House of Representatives is the larger of two houses that make up the U.S. Congress, the other being the United States Senate. ...
Ronald Vernie (Ron) Dellums (born November 24, 1935), U.S. Democratic Party politician, is the mayor of the City of Oakland, California. ...
See also: American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) The civil rights movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. ...
Martin Luther King is perhaps most famous for his I Have a Dream speech, given in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom This article is about the civil rights movement following the Brown v. ...
The U.S. Southern states or the South, also known colloquially as Dixie, constitute a distinctive region covering a large portion of the United States, with its own unique heritage, historical perspective, customs, musical styles, and cuisine. ...
Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987) was an American civil rights leader and union organizer, and played an important role in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. ...
The Pullman Company
 A Pullman porter assisting a passenger. The campaign to found the union was an extraordinarily long one, that put it at odds with not only the company, but many members of the black community. The Pullman Company was not only one of the largest employers of blacks in the 1920s and 1930s, but had created an image for itself of enlightened benevolence by its financial support for black churches, newspapers and other organizations. Many porters were, moreover, well-paid enough to enjoy the material advantages of a middle class lifestyle and prominence within their own communities. old picture of Pullman porter This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ...
old picture of Pullman porter This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ...
The 1920s is a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ...
The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ...
Working for the Pullman Company was, however, less glamorous in practice than it appeared from the outside. Porters were dependent on tips for much of their income; that, in turn, made them dependent on the whims of white passengers, who uniformly referred to all porters as "George", the first name of George Pullman, the founder of the company. Porters spent roughly ten percent of their time in unpaid "preparatory" and "terminal" set-up and clean-up duties, had to pay for their food, lodging, and uniforms, which might consume half of their wages, and were charged whenever their passengers stole a towel or a water pitcher. Porters could ride at half fare on their days off — but not on Pullman coaches. They also could not be promoted to conductor, a job reserved for whites, even though they frequently performed many of the conductors' duties. The guard, conductor, captain, or foreman (depending upon country of origin, or railway system) is the senior railway official responsible for the safe operation of a train, whether it is a passenger or freight train. ...
The Company also squelched any efforts they had made to organize a union during the first decades of the twentieth century by either isolating or firing any union leaders. Like many other large, ostensibly paternalistic companies of the time, the Company employed a large number of employee spies who kept the company informed of employees' activities; in extreme cases Company agents assaulted union organizers.
When 500 porters meeting in Harlem on August 25, 1925 decided to make another effort to organize, they therefore not only launched their campaign in secret, but chose Randolph, an outsider beyond the reach of the Company, to lead it. The union chose a dramatic motto that summed up porters' resentment over their working conditions and their sense of their place in history: "Fight or Be Slaves". August 25 is the 237th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (238th in leap years), with 128 days remaining. ...
Organizing the union At that time the African-American community was, to put it mildly, estranged from organized labor. While the AFL nominally did not exclude black workers, many of its affiliates did. Many black workers saw their employers, whether it was Henry Ford in Detroit or Swift Packing in Chicago, as more sympathetic to them than either their white co-workers or the labor movement. In addition, the economic separation forced by Jim Crow and the doctrine of advancement through self-reliance preached by Booker T. Washington led many black leaders to look with distrust on joining with whites on issues of common concern — and often denied that blacks and whites had any common interests at all. Henry Ford (1919) Henry Fords mom is a slut bag (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. ...
Motto: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes - this motto was adopted after the disastrous 1805 fire that devastated the city) Nickname: The Motor City and Motown Location in Wayne County, Michigan Founded Incorporated July 24, 1701 1815 County Wayne County Mayor...
Gustavus Franklin Swift (June 24, 1839–March 29, 1903) founded a meat-packing empire in the Midwest during the late 19th century, over which he presided until his death. ...
Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town, City of the Big Shoulders, The 312, The City that Works. Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook & DuPage Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government...
The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and Border States of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965 and affected African Americans and many other races. ...
Booker T. Washington he was dimb Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856, – November 14, 1915) was an American political leader, educator and author. ...
That was beginning to change, however, in the 1920s, as some elements within the AFL began to lower these barriers, while groups as diverse as the Urban League, the Socialist Party of America and Communist Party began to focus on the rights of black workers. Randolph himself was a prominent member of the Socialist Party. The 1920s is a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ...
National Urban League Logo The National Urban League is a non-profit, nonpartisan, civil rights and community-based movement that advocates on behalf of Black Americans and against racial discrimination. ...
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) is a socialist political party in the United States. ...
The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. ...
The Company's response was to denounce, with support from the ministers and African-American newspapers whom it had cultivated, the new union as an outside entity motivated by foreign ideologies, while sponsoring its own company union, variously known as the Employee Representation Plan or the Pullman Porters and Maids Protective Association, to represent its loyal employees. Local authorities, such as Boss Crump in Memphis, Tennessee in some cases helped the Company by interfering with or banning BSCP meetings. A company union is a union that is located at a single company, organized by that company, and is not affiliated with another union group. ...
Edward Hull Crump (October 2, 1874–October 16, 1954) was a Memphis, Tennessee insurance broker, businessman, and political figure in the early 20th century. ...
For other uses, see Memphis (disambiguation). ...
The union continued fighting the Company, its allies in the black community and the white power structure, and rival unions within the AFL that were hostile to its members' job claims for the first several years of its existence. The BSCP also tried to involve the federal government in its fight with the Pullman Company: on September 7, 1927 the Brotherhood filed a case with the Interstate Commerce Commission, requesting an investigation of Pullman rates, porters' wages, tipping practices, and other matters related to wages and working conditions; the ICC ruled that it did not have jurisdiction. September 7 is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years). ...
1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar). ...
The Interstate Commerce Commission (or ICC) was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland. ...
While it had organized roughly half of the porters within the Company, the union was seemingly no closer to obtaining recognition than it had been in 1925. By 1928 BSCP leaders decided that the only way to force the issue was to strike the Company. The leadership was, however, divided on what a strike could accomplish: some rank-and-file leaders wanted to use the strike as a show of strength and an organizing tool, while Randolph was more cautious, hoping to use the threat of a strike as the lever to get the federal National Mediation Board established pursuant to the Railway Labor Act to bring the Pullman Company to the table while mobilizing support from supporters outside the industry. When the NMB refused to act, Randolph called off the strike just hours before it was scheduled to begin. Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ...
The National Mediation Board (NMB) is an independent agency of the United States government that coordinates labor-management relations within the U.S. railroad and airline industries. ...
The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railway and airline industries. ...
That provoked an internal crisis, deepened by the Great Depression, which made any steady job immensely attractive and led to a sharp drop in BSCP membership. The union might have disappeared altogether if Randolph and his principal rival within the organization, Milton P. Webster of its Chicago branch, had not composed their differences to work together and, in time, become close friends. The union held on through the worst days of the early 1930s until 1934, when the Roosevelt administration amended the RLA, then passed the Wagner-Connery Act, which outlawed company unions and covered porters under the Act, the following year. The Great Depression was a time of economic down turn, which started after the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. ...
The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ...
1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882–April 12, 1945), 32nd President of the United States, the longest-serving holder of the office and the only man to be elected President more than twice, was one of the central figures of 20th century history. ...
The BSCP immediately demanded that the NMB certify it as the representative of these porters. The BSCP defeated the company union in the election held by the NMB and on June 1, 1935 was certified. Two years later the union signed its first collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company. June 1 is the 152nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (153rd in leap years), with 213 days remaining. ...
1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ...
Civil rights leadership The BSCP won a charter from the AFL in 1935, the same year it was certified by the NMB. In the years before then, when the AFL refused to recognize the organization itself, Randolph accepted "federal local" status for a number of locals of the BSCP — an unsatisfactory compromise that assumed that these locals had no union of their own, and allowed them to affiliate directly with the AFL on that basis. That half-measure, however, allowed Randolph into AFL conventions and other meetings, where he advocated organization of black workers on an equal footing with whites. Randolph kept the BSCP in the AFL, where most of the railroad brotherhoods remained, after John L. Lewis led the split that resulted in the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. DAVE ACKERMAN HAS WOOLY SOCKSJohn Llewellyn Lewis (February 12, 1880 – June 11, 1969) was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960. ...
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, was a federation of unions that organized industrial workers in the United States and Canada in 1935-1955. ...
Randolph expanded his agenda once he became the leader of the foremost black labor organization in the U.S. Randolph was chosen as the leader of the National Negro Congress, an umbrella organization founded in 1937 that united many of the major black civil rights organizations of the day. Randolph later resigned from the NNC in a dispute over policy with communist activists within it. The NNC went into eclipse, while Randolph's stature continued to grow. National Negro Congress The National Negro Congress is an organization which was put into place by the Communist Party In the United States of America in 1935 at Howard University. ...
Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
In 1941 he used the threat of a march on Washington and support from the NAACP, Fiorello LaGuardia and Eleanor Roosevelt to force the administration to ban discrimination by defense contractors and establish the Fair Employment Practices Committee to enforce that order. Milton Webster, the BSCP's First Vice-President, worked to make the FEPC an effective tool in combatting employment discrimination. Randolph achieved his other demand — the end of racial segregation within the military — seven years later, when President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order banning it. For the movie, see 1941 (film). ...
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is one of the oldest and most influential hate organizations in the United States. ...
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (December 11, 1882–September 20, 1947) was the Mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945. ...
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American political leader who used her stature as First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945 to promote her husbands (Franklin D. Roosevelts) New Deal, as well as civil rights. ...
President Truman announces that Germany had surrendered (May 8 1945) Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953); as Vice President, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. ...
BSCP members played a significant role in the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1940s and 1950s. E. D. Nixon, a BSCP member and the most militant spokesperson for the rights of African-Americans in Montgomery, Alabama for most of the 1940s and 1950s, exemplified the leadership that the union provided. Nixon could take advantage of his experience organizing under difficult circumstances and his immunity to economic reprisals from local businesses and authorities. BSCP members also helped spread information and create networks between the different communities their work took them to, bringing the newspapers and political ideas they picked up in the North back to their hometowns. The civil rights movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. ...
The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ...
// Recovering from World War II and its aftermath, the economic miracle emerged in West Germany and Italy. ...
Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987) was an American civil rights leader and union organizer, and played an important role in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. ...
Coordinates: Country United States State Alabama County Montgomery Incorporated December 3, 1819 Mayor Bobby Bright Area - City 404. ...
The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ...
// Recovering from World War II and its aftermath, the economic miracle emerged in West Germany and Italy. ...
Randolph helped negotiate the return of the CIO to the AFL in 1955. Randolph by that time had achieved elder statesman status within the civil rights movement, even as changes in the railroad industry were gradually displacing many of the union's members. 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Randolph and one of his chief lieutenants, Bayard Rustin — who, ironically, had bitterly criticized Randolph for calling off the 1941 March on Washington — were the moving force behind the 1963 March on Washington. As Randolph said from the podium at that march: Bayard Rustin at news briefing on the Civil Rights March on Washington, August 27, 1963 Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African-American civil rights activist, important largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier and principal organizer of the...
1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ...
- Let the nation know the meaning of our numbers. We are not a pressure group. We are not an organization. We are not a mob. We are the advance guard of a massive moral revolution that is not confined to the Negro, nor is it confined to civil rights, for our white allies know that they are not free while we are not.
Merger with BRAC Passenger rail travel dropped sharply after its peak in the 1940s, when the BSCP had 15,000 members, to the 1960s, when only 3000 porters had regular runs. C.L. Dellums replaced Randolph as President of the BSCP in 1968. The BSCP merged with BRAC a decade later. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ...
The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ...
1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday. ...
The Transportation Communications International Union or TCU is the successor to the union formerly known as the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks and includes within it many other organizations, including the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters that have merged with it since 1969. ...
A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum The A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum was established in Chicago in 1995 to celebrate both the life of A. Philip Randolph and the role of African-Americans in the U.S. labor movement. The museum can be found at 10406 S. Maryland Ave. Chicago, IL 60628 Flag Seal Nickname: The Windy City Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location Location in Chicagoland and northern Illinois Coordinates , Government Country State Counties United States Illinois Cook, DuPage Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Geographical characteristics Area City 606. ...
Notable Pullman Porters Big Bill Broonzy (1893 or 1898-1958) was a prolific United States composer, recorder and performer of blues songs. ...
Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an American explorer and long-time companion to Robert Peary; amongst various expeditions, their most famous was a 1909 expedition which was probably the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. ...
Claude McKay. ...
Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays ( August 1, 1894 (?) – March 28, 1984) was an African-American minister, educator, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta. ...
Oscar Micheaux (October 2, 1893 – March 25, 1951) was a pioneering African American author and is widely recognized as being the first African-American filmmaker (although he was predated by the shortlived Lincoln Motion Picture Company[1]). He is without a doubt the most famous producer of race films. ...
Edgar Daniel Nixon (July 12, 1899 – February 25, 1987) was an American civil rights leader and union organizer, and played an important role in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. ...
Gordon Parks at Civil Rights March on Washington, 1963. ...
Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red and Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965 in New York City) was a Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam. ...
See also A Pullman sleeping car porter. ...
The civil rights movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all citizens of United States. ...
The Communist Party USA played a significant role in defending the rights of African-Americans during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. ...
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) Leadership Conference on Civil Rights(LCCR) was founded in 1950 by A. Philip Randolph( founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), Roy Wilkins (Executive Secretary of the NAACP), and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. ...
References Public domain text from http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/5views/5views2h20.htm and http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/ny2.htm http://www.aphiliprandolphmuseum.com/index.html
External links
Other materials - 10,000 Black Men Named George
- Bates, Beth Tompkins, Pullman Porters And The Rise Of Protest Politics In Black America, 1925-1945 ISBN 0-8078-4929-4
- Chateauvert, Melinda, Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters ISBN 0-252-06636-7
- Tye, Larry, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class ISBN 0-8050-7075-3
|
Feeds |
Contact