Pullman Porters & the History of the Black Working Class

In the early 20th century, career options for Black workers were limited, and the jobs often came with low pay and poor conditions. Ironically, because they were concentrated in certain jobs, Black workers sometimes monopolized those jobs and had collective power to demand better conditions and higher pay. The Pullman Company, founded in 1862, hired only Black men to serve as porters on Pullman cars, since George M. Pullman thought that formerly enslaved men would know how to be good, invisible servants and that they would work for low wages. In 1925, the Pullman Porters formed their own union, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, with A. Philip Randolph serving as president. After years of struggle, in 1935, the Pullman Company finally recognized the union, and it was granted a charter by the American Federation of Labor (AFL), making the Brotherhood the first Black union it accepted. Joining me in this episode to help us learn about the Black working class is historian Dr. Blair L. M. Kelley , the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the incoming director of the Center for the Study of the American Sout…