JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – A century ago this year, on Aug. 25, 1925, 500 Pullman Co. railroad porters secretly gathered in New York City’s Harlem for a meeting that would become a key event in the Civil Rights Movement and the development of a Black middle class in the U.S.
They launched the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, with A. Philip Randolph as president. It became the first predominantly Black organization to be chartered by the American Federation of Labor.
Forming a union helped the porters get higher wages, more benefits and improved working conditions. But their efforts affected more than just their own jobs. Over the years, their success inspired other Black workers to get involved with the civil rights and labor movements, including in places such as Johnstown.
“I think what’s most important here in Johnstown is when the porters formed that Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, that gave the steelworkers the message that it was OK to join unions,” said Barbara Zaborowski, Pennsylvania Highlands Community College’s dean of library services and special projects.
A. Philip Randolph, International President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and national president of the Negro American Labor Council, is shown in Washington, D.C., Aug. 1963. Randolph is also director of the August 28 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. (AP Photo)
“After the ’37 and the ’41 (local steel mill) strikes, the Blacks who worked in the mills – and there were a lot of them, doing a lot of dangerous and hard-working jobs in the mills – I think they were more ready then to sit down with United Steelworkers of America and join the union,” Zaborowski said.
“Had it not been for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters unionizing, I think it would have taken a lot longer in Johnstown for the Blacks who worked in the mills to join the union. There was no precedent before.”
‘Economic freedom’
The Pullman Co. operated dining cars, lounge cars and most notably luxury sleeping cars from 1867 to Dec. 31, 1968. The cars were attached to locomotives owned by other companies, such as the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and pulled along the tracks to their destinations.
Part of the experience was to be served by a porter, usually a Black man, who carried bags, shined shoes, cleaned and tended to other passenger needs. It was one of the better and more respected jobs available to Black men then, but also one that involved long hours, exposure to the racism of the time, and heavy reliance on tips for pay before unionization.
“It was a time coming out of slavery and just disenfranchisement where this job, being a Pullman porter or a Pullman employee, was considered to be a really excellent job in the Black community,” said Jon Goldman, chief curator of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. “It was relatively fair wages paid, comparable wages.
“There was an economic freedom and also like a freedom of movement that working for the railroad provided. … A lot of historians credit the Pullman Co. with the emergence of an African American middle class in the country.”
A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, talks to newsmen at the Capitol after leader of the March on Washington met with congressional leaders, Aug. 28, 1963. At right is Whitney Young of the National Urban League. (AP Photo)
The porters had a reputation for class and professionalism. An example is cited in “History of the Johnstown Flood” by Willis Fletcher Johnson. The book includes a recounting of Associated Press general manager William Henry Smith’s experiences on a passenger train that reached Johnstown May 31, 1889, the day a flood killed more than 2,200 people.
“There was a rumor also that the reservoir at South Fork might break,” Smith wrote. “This made most of the passengers uneasy, and they kept a pretty good look-out for information. The porters of the Pullman cars remained at their posts, and comforted the passengers with the assurance that the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. always took care of its patrons. A few gentlemen and some ladies and children quietly seated themselves, apparently contented.”
Other Pullman cars were scattered in the flood’s debris.
‘Better world’
Porters experienced racism and segregation, just as other Black people did. In Altoona, they could not stay in certain lodging establishments, according to Harriett Gaston, a Penn State Altoona academic adviser and Blair County NAACP Branch No. 2252 historian.
But Gaston said Black visitors could find a place to sleep, eat and get clean from local resident Annie Lewis Jackson, who “opened up her home to them.”
“I would assume that there is a version of Mrs. Jackson in almost every town,” Gaston said.
The day-after-day traveling the porters did provided them with experiences that other Black people might not have had while working on farms or in factories, whether in the South or after moving North during the Great Migration.
“I think because they traveled so much, they got exposure to what this country was about and saw things and realized where they were from, especially if they were from the South or other places where, again, they had to live in that part of the neighborhood due to customs or traditions,” Gaston said.
“They were able to explain to their children what it was like traveling around. There was a better world out there. These children grew up in some cases running for local government and beyond.”
‘Fight is still here’
That larger understanding of the country played a role in the desire to form the brotherhood. Previous efforts to unionize were squelched by the Pullman Co.
But the effort led by Randolph, who was not a porter and therefore beyond retaliation by the company, was ultimately successful. Their motto was “Fight or Be Slaves.”
“I’d like to start with the narrative that was uttered on Aug. 25, 1925, by A. Philip Randolph, which was what this is about is making us masters of our economic fate,” said David A. Peterson Jr., president and executive director of the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum in Chicago. “And, 100 years later, we’re still saying that same thing in different forms, through actions, directly, overtly, covertly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
Leaders of the proposed August 28 Civil Rights March, hold a news conference at March headquarters, Aug. 3, 1963, New York. From left are Bayard Rustin, Executive Director of the March Committee; A. Philip Randolph, President of the Negro American Labor Council and Chairman of the March; and Dr. John Morsell of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They announced that many more than the 100,000 persons originally expected will participate in the demonstration. (AP Photo)
Peterson said “the same fight is still here” regarding money, access to jobs, working conditions and training.
Membership eventually grew to somewhere between 12,000 and 18,000, based on various sources. But as railroad ridership declined, so did the number of porters and union members.
The BSCP eventually merged with the Brotherhood of Railway, Airline, Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employees that exists today as the Transportation Communications Union/IAM.
Meanwhile, Randolph grew into one of the most prominent members of the Civil Rights Movement. He was the head of the March on Washington in 1963 when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.