Download or read book Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters written by Robert L Allen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters created a sea of change in labour and race relations in the US. For the first time in US history, a black labour union played a central role in shaping labor and civil rights policy. Based on interviews and archival research, this new book tells the story of the union and its charismatic leader C.L. Dellums, starting from the BSCP's origins as the first national union of black workers in 1925. In 1937, the BSCP made history when it compelled one of the largest US corporations - the Pullman Company - to recognize and negotiate a contract with a black workers' union. C. L. Dellums was a leading civil rights activist as well as a labor leader. In 1948, he was chosen to be the first West Coast Regional Director of the NAACP. This book is an inspiring testament to both him and the unions transformative impact on US society.
Download or read book Marching Together written by Melinda Chateauvert and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first book-length history of the women of the BSCP, Melinda Chateauvert brings to life an entire group of women ignored in previous histories of the Brotherhood and of working-class women, situating them in the debates among women's historians over the ways that race and class shape women's roles and gender relations. Chateauvert's work shows how the auxiliary, made up of the wives, daughters, and sisters of Pullman porters, used the Brotherhood to claim respectability and citizenship. Pullman maids, relegated to the auxiliary, found their problems as working women neglected in favor of the rhetoric of racial solidarity.
Download or read book Rising from the Rails written by Larry Tye and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2005-06-01 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A valuable window into a long-underreported dimension of African American history."—Newsday An engaging social history that reveals the critical role Pullman porters played in the struggle for African American civil rights When George Pullman began recruiting Southern blacks as porters in his luxurious new sleeping cars, the former slaves suffering under Jim Crow laws found his offer of a steady job and worldly experience irresistible. They quickly signed up to serve as maid, waiter, concierge, nanny, and occasionally doctor and undertaker to cars full of white passengers, making the Pullman Company the largest employer of African American men in the country by the 1920s. In the world of the Pullman sleeping car, where whites and blacks lived in close proximity, porters developed a unique culture marked by idiosyncratic language, railroad lore, and shared experience. They called difficult passengers "Mister Charlie"; exchanged stories about Daddy Jim, the legendary first Pullman porter; and learned to distinguish generous tippers such as Humphrey Bogart from skinflints like Babe Ruth. At the same time, they played important social, political, and economic roles, carrying jazz and blues to outlying areas, forming America's first black trade union, and acting as forerunners of the modern black middle class by virtue of their social position and income. Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter and the vital cultural, political, and economic roles they played as forerunners of the modern black middle class. Rising from the Rails provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon. • Named a Recommended Book by The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Seattle Times
Download or read book Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America 1925 1945 written by Beth Tompkins Bates and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-01-14 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between World War I and World War II, African Americans' quest for civil rights took on a more aggressive character as a new group of black activists challenged the politics of civility traditionally embraced by old-guard leaders in favor of a more forceful protest strategy. Beth Tompkins Bates traces the rise of this new protest politics--which was grounded in making demands and backing them up with collective action--by focusing on the struggle of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) to form a union in Chicago, headquarters of the Pullman Company. Bates shows how the BSCP overcame initial opposition from most of Chicago's black leaders by linking its union message with the broader social movement for racial equality. As members of BSCP protest networks mobilized the black community around the quest for manhood rights and economic freedom, they broke down resistance to organized labor even as they expanded the boundaries of citizenship to include equal economic opportunity. By the mid-1930s, BSCP protest networks gained platforms at the national level, fusing Brotherhood activities first with those of the National Negro Congress and later with the March on Washington Movement. Lessons learned during this era guided the next generation of activists, who carried the black freedom struggle forward after World War II.
Download or read book The Pullman Porters and West Oakland written by Thomas Tramble and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hub of transportation and industry since the mid-19th century, West Oakland is today a vital commercial conduit and an inimitably distinct and diverse community within the Greater Oakland metropolitan area. The catalyst that transformed this neighborhood from a transcontinental rail terminal into a true settlement was the arrival of the railroad porters, employed by the Pullman Palace Car Company as early as 1867. After years of struggling in labor battles and negotiations, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union became the first African Americanaled union to sign a contract with a large American company. The unionas West Coast headquarters were established at Fifth and Wood Streets in West Oakland. Soon families, benevolent societies, and churches followed, and a true community came into being.
Download or read book They Call Me George written by Cecil Foster and published by Biblioasis. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A CBC BOOKS MUST-READ NONFICTION BOOK FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH Nominated for the Toronto Book Award Smartly dressed and smiling, Canada’s black train porters were a familiar sight to the average passenger—yet their minority status rendered them politically invisible, second-class in the social imagination that determined who was and who was not considered Canadian. Subjected to grueling shifts and unreasonable standards—a passenger missing his stop was a dismissible offense—the so-called Pullmen of the country’s rail lines were denied secure positions and prohibited from bringing their families to Canada, and it was their struggle against the racist Dominion that laid the groundwork for the multicultural nation we know today. Drawing on the experiences of these influential black Canadians, Cecil Foster’s They Call Me George demonstrates the power of individuals and minority groups in the fight for social justice and shows how a country can change for the better.
Download or read book A Philip Randolph written by Cynthia Taylor and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarship has portrayed A. Philip Randolph, an African American trade unionist as an atheist and anti-religious. Taylor places him within the context of American religious history and uncovers his complex relationship to African American religion.
Download or read book My Name s Not George written by Stanley G. Grizzle and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Celebrate People s History written by Josh MacPhee and published by The Feminist Press at CUNY. This book was released on 2010-11-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best way to learn history is to visualize it! Since 1998, Josh MacPhee has commissioned and produced over one hundred posters by over eighty artists that pay tribute to revolution, racial justice, women's rights, queer liberation, labor struggles, and creative activism and organizing. Celebrate People's History! presents these essential moments—acts of resistance and great events in an often hidden history of human and civil rights struggles—as a visual tour through decades and across continents, from the perspective of some of the most interesting and socially engaged artists working today. Celebrate People's History includes artwork by Cristy Road, Swoon, Nicole Schulman, Christopher Cardinale, Sabrina Jones, Eric Drooker, Klutch, Carrie Moyer, Laura Whitehorn, Dan Berger, Ricardo Levins Morales, Chris Stain, and more.
Download or read book Collective Courage written by Jessica Gordon Nembhard and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-13 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of the players are well known in the history of the African American experience: Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph and the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Jo Baker, George Schuyler and the Young Negroes’ Co-operative League, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party. Adding the cooperative movement to Black history results in a retelling of the African American experience, with an increased understanding of African American collective economic agency and grassroots economic organizing. To tell the story, Gordon Nembhard uses a variety of newspapers, period magazines, and journals; co-ops’ articles of incorporation, minutes from annual meetings, newsletters, budgets, and income statements; and scholarly books, memoirs, and biographies. These sources reveal the achievements and challenges of Black co-ops, collective economic action, and social entrepreneurship. Gordon Nembhard finds that African Americans, as well as other people of color and low-income people, have benefitted greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the nation’s history.
Download or read book A Philip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights written by Cornelius L. Bynum and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-12-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A. Philip Randolph's career as a trade unionist and civil rights activist shaped the course of black protest in the mid-20th century. This book shows that Randolph's push for African American equality took place within a broader progressive program of industrial reform.
Download or read book For Jobs and Freedom written by Asa Philip Randolph and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a tireless advocate for civil rights, A. Philip Randolph (1889--1979) served as a bridge between African Americans and the labor movement. During a public career that spanned more than five decades, he was a leading voice in the struggle for black freedom and social justice, and his powerful words inspired others to join him. This volume documents Randolph's life and work through his own writings. The editors have combed through the files of libraries, manuscript collections, and newspapers, selecting more than seventy published and unpublished pieces that shed light on Randolph's most significant activities. The book is organized thematically around his major interests -- dismantling workplace inequality, expanding civil rights, confronting racial segregation, and building international coalitions. The editors provide a detailed biographical essay that helps to situate the speeches and writings collected in the book. In the absence of an autobiography, this volume offers the best available presentation of Randolph's ideas and arguments in his own words.
Download or read book An Anthology of Respect written by Lyn Hughes and published by Hughes-Peterson Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In addition to the book being an important educative contribution to an often overlooked component of American history; it can also serve as an aid to: genealogists, historians and most importantly descendants of these men, moreover, to all who are interested in research on what has become a growing area of interest. The publication of An Anthology Of Respect: The Pullman Porters National Historic Registry of African American Railroad Employees, represents a unique scholarly contribution to the fields of African American and American Labor History.
Download or read book Miles of Smiles Years of Struggle written by Jack Santino and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As service workers in a luxurious sleeping-car train system, Pullman porters had both the highest status in the black community and the lowest rank on the train. They were trapped in the dual roles of charming host and obedient servant, and their constant smiles--even in the face of unreasonable demands by white passengers--were part of the job requirement. Jack Santino's interviews with retired porters provide extensive firsthand accounts of their work, the job inequities they faced, the formation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the aborted Pullman porter strike of 1928. Through the testimony of ran-and-file workers as well as key figures such as E. D. Nixon, the porter who initiated the Montgomery bus boycott and helped launch the career of Martin Luther King, Jr. and C.L. Dellums, the only surviving founding member of the BSCP, Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle illuminates the Pullman porters' struggle for dignity.
Download or read book A Long Hard Journey written by Pat McKissack and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronicle of the first Black-controlled union, made up of Pullman porters, who after years of unfair labor practices staged a battle against a corporate giant resulting in a "David and Goliath" ending.
Download or read book A Philip Randolph written by Jervis Anderson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Anderson...details with rare journalistic insight Randolph's meteoric rise from a young radical and street orator in Harlem to the most sought-after black in the labor movement...' -Malcolm Poindexter, The Philadelphia Bulletin
Download or read book Power in Our Hands written by William Bigelow and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This celebrated book provides entertaining, easy-to-use lesson plans for teaching labor history. "Most school teachers are drowned in paper, but here is one book I want to recommend to them. It is a way of getting American teenagers not just interested, but excited and passionate about their history - modern American labor history." - Pete Seeger
