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 332 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 The Sleeping Car Porter written by Suzette Mayr and published by Coach House Books. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE WINNER OF THE CITY OF CALGARY W.O. MITCHELL BOOK PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2023 GEORGE BUGNET AWARD FOR FICTION PUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 20 LITERARY FICTION BOOKS OF 2022 OPRAH DAILY: BOOKS TO READ BY THE FIRE THE GLOBE 100: THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 CBC BOOKS: THE BEST CANADIAN FICTION OF 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS PRIZE When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways. Affecting, imaginative, and visceral enough that you’ll feel the rocking of the train, The Sleeping Car Porter is a stunning accomplishment. Baxter’s name isn’t George. But it’s 1929, and Baxter is lucky enough, as a Black man, to have a job as a sleeping car porter on a train that crisscrosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to just smile and nod and act invisible. What he really wants is to go to dentistry school, but he’ll have to save up a lot of nickel and dime tips to get there, so he puts up with “George.” On this particular trip out west, the passengers are more unruly than usual, especially when the train is stalled for two extra days; their secrets start to leak out and blur with the sleep-deprivation hallucinations Baxter is having. When he finds a naughty postcard of two queer men, Baxter’s memories and longings are reawakened; keeping it puts his job in peril, but he can’t part with the postcard or his thoughts of Edwin Drew, Porter Instructor. "Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter offers a richly detailed account of a particular occupation and time—train porter on a Canadian passenger train in 1929—and unforcedly allows it to illuminate the societal strictures imposed on black men at the time—and today. Baxter is a secretly-queer and sleep-deprived porter saving up for dental school, working a system that periodically assigns unexplained demerits, and once a certain threshold is reached, the porter loses his job. Thus, success is impossible, the best one can do is to fail slowly. As Baxter takes a cross-continental run, the boarding passengers have more secrets than an Agatha Christie cast, creating a powder keg on train tracks. The Sleeping Car Porter is an engaging and illuminating novel about the costs of work, service, and secrets." – Keith Mosman, Powell's Books "I thought The Sleeping Car Porter was fantastic! It strikes a balance between being about the struggles of being black and gay at that time while not being too heavy handed with it. I enjoyed his constant mental math on how many demerits he might receive for each infraction. The reader really gets a sense of the conflict that Baxter is going through. I really liked reading a book from the perspective of a porter." – Hunter Gillum, Beaverdale Books
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 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 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 Monoceros written by Suzette Mayr and published by Coach House Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unicorns, Ethiopian food, a Wonder Woman drag queen: Monoceros offers a funny, heartbreaking look at the tragedy of teen suicide.
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 A Sleeping car Porter s Experience Treating in Brief Ordinary Life written by C. Anderson and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter Classic Reprint written by Jack Thorne and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter But you did not apply at the right season, and perhaps not in proper form, persisted my friend. A person might apply till doomsday and still be unsuccessful, said he. I shall never forget the way he posted me, wind ing up by offering to wager a month's pay that I would be at work in less than three weeks' time. A few mornings afterward and I was again in the Pullman office, with brighter hopes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 1925 1950 written by Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter written by Jack Thorne and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book North of the Color Line written by Sarah-Jane Mathieu and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North of the Color Line examines life in Canada for the estimated 5,000 blacks, both African Americans and West Indians, who immigrated to Canada after the end of Reconstruction in the United States. Through the experiences of black railway workers and their union, the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, Sarah-Jane Mathieu connects social, political, labor, immigration, and black diaspora history during the Jim Crow era. By World War I, sleeping car portering had become the exclusive province of black men. White railwaymen protested the presence of the black workers and insisted on a segregated workforce. Using the firsthand accounts of former sleeping car porters, Mathieu shows that porters often found themselves leading racial uplift organizations, galvanizing their communities, and becoming the bedrock of civil rights activism. Examining the spread of segregation laws and practices in Canada, whose citizens often imagined themselves as devoid of racism, Mathieu historicizes Canadian racial attitudes, and explores how black migrants brought their own sensibilities about race to Canada, participating in and changing political discourse there.
Download or read book Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter Primary Source Edition written by Jack B. 1863 Thorne and published by Nabu Press. This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Download or read book Army of Lovers written by Sarah Liss and published by Coach House Books. This book was released on 2013-09-16 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 2010, Toronto lost one of its most important queer civic heroes. Weaving together interviews and stories, Army of Lovers is a biography of Will Munro and a document of a galvanizing period when various subcultures — the queer community, the art scene, the independent music universe, the grassroots activist enclaves — came together.
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.
