The fact that the meeting was even happening was enough to produce an air of subversive excitement. Over one hundred years ago on August 25, 1925, Black sleeping car porters, hoping to form a union at the Pullman company, packed the Elks Hall in Harlem. Company spies were probably in the audience as well.
Described as a Socialist, A. Philip Randolph led the meeting, making the case that a union was the only way to deal with their grievances and reclaim their manhood. This gathering initiated a 12-year struggle to form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) and win a first contract against a corporate giant.
“The Brotherhood,” as many members affectionately called it, would become a vehicle to educate Black communities about labor unions and challenge corporate domination, and an institutional anchor for waging civil rights fights and developing activist pressure tactics. It embodies the deep historical connection between the labor movement and civil rights.
In the late 19th century, industrialist George Pullman designed luxury train cars to transport passengers across the country. The genius was in making this service available to the middle classes, not just the wealthy elite. The idea took off, and by 1895 Pullman had 2,556 sleeping cars traveling 126,660 miles of track. At its peak, the sleeper cars hosted 100,000 a night—more than all of the country’s major hotels combined.
The key to this luxury was not just a bed to lay your head on and some food to eat. Passengers would have their own personal servant: the Pullman porter. Cynically, Pullman reserved these jobs for Southern Black men, preferably the formerly enslaved, explaining how they were “trained as a race by years of personal service in various capacities” for this job. In a further insult to their dignity, most porters were referred to as “George,” harkening back to the days of slaves being named after their master.
The expectation of complete subservience was reinforced by the fact that porters relied mostly on tips for their wage.