The Pullman Porters:
The patriarchs of the African American professional class
The patriarchs of the African American professional class
| (Clockwise from above) Pullman porter at the Union Station in Chicago, Illinois in 1943; Pullman porter checking the list of hours he is to wake people in the morning aboard the "Capitol Limited" bound for Chicago, Illinois in 1942; Pullman porter making up an upper berth aboard the "Capitol Limited" bound for Chicago, Illinois in 1942 (Jack Delano, photographer) |
by Anne Vandenburgh, M.A.
George Pullman was the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car in 1864, a railroad
passenger car which provided small beds for passengers, making travel at night more
comfortable. Pullman cars were normally a dark “Pullman green,” because they belonged to
the Pullman Company, rather than to the railroads which used them.
Pullman went into the Deep South, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina and
recruited recently-freed former house slaves because they were accustomed to providing
personal service in an acquiescent manner that would not threaten White railroad
passengers. As a result, Pullman became the largest private employer of African American
men in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century (1875–1899).
The porters provided a wide variety of services. They greeted passengers, put out the
step box, carried their luggage on and off the car, collected tickets, sold berths, dispatched
telegrams, served food, posted quiet signs at night, sold cigarettes, candy, and playing
cards. And so on, And so forth.
Their primary job was making beds, or, as they said, “making down beds.” The lower
berth was fashioned by folding the facing seats, attaching the curtains, and then adding the
headboard, blankets, and pillows. Then, the upper berth was pulled down from the upper
wall, and the procedure repeated. Porters accomplished all of this in three to five minutes;
some claimed they could do it in a minute and a half. They did this several times every
night under the impatient eyes of their passengers. If the “uppers” wanted to go to bed
before the “lowers” were ready, the porter was expected to meet their demands without
asking the lowers to vacate their seats.
“A wise porter will begin making some of his beds just as soon as some of his
passengers begin going to the dining car for supper.”
Former porter Robert E. Turner
The smoking room served as the men’s restroom and a place where men passengers
could socialize; the porter set up card tables for them. This is where the porter spent most of
the night shining shoes, mending and pressing clothes, and polishing cuspidors. He also
scrubbed the bathroom fixtures, polished mirrors, filled soap dispensers, and replaced
towels. In addition, the porter dusted cinders from window ledges and boxed ladies’ hats.
The porters tried to get some sleep on a thin mattress behind a thin black curtain. Company
rules barred the porters from asking men to leave the room, but they found ways to cope.
“If they didn’t go, I would come in there with some formaldehyde on the mop. You couldn’t
stand it, and it burned your eyes.”
Former porter Leroy Graham
The porters were trained and worked out of the railroad hubs like Chicago, New York, or Boston. When they went for the training program, they would rent a
room in a rooming house, a practice which they also did when they had long layovers in other cities. Sometimes, Pullman would allow them to sleep in empty
sleeping cars on the siding.
Once they had passed the training program and were guaranteed a steady, albeit low, income, they would rent apartments and bring their families north;
they often worked second jobs when they weren’t on the railroad.
The men worked 400 hours a month, got three hours of sleep a night, and stayed on the road for a month at a time. If there were no conductor available,
then a porter would be given his responsibilities and called the porter-in-charge but paid $50 to $150 less than conductors.
Although this was the best blue-collar job open to African American men at the time, the attitude of the porters changed from getting Pullman jobs for their
fathers, brothers, sons, and nephews to getting education for their sons and daughters, so that the children could enter other fields of work.
Because no hospital would hire African Americans, two brothers who had both earned M.D.s worked for 10 years as porters to save enough money to open their
own medical practice.
Being a Pullman Porter was a desirable job for students; they could earn tuition during summers, which were peak travel times. Hiring college students
during the summer ended in the 1920s when the Pullman Company violently engaged in union-busting activity.
Because the porters were gone for long periods of times, their wives coped as single parents and also worked to supplement the family income. As the family
income grew, they were able to buy homes, cars, and televisions; they also managed to save money to send their children to college. The porters, who
themselves had been illiterate newly-freed slaves, clearly understood the importance of education. They instilled in their children the value of working hard to
achieve the goal of bettering their lives.
For example, James Kennard moved his family to California because it was the least segregated place that he encountered on his travels. Once there, he
fought to enroll his son in the White school because he wanted a better education for the child.
The porters were rarely addressed by their own names; they were often called George, or boy, or uncle, or worse …. by supervisors as well as by passengers.
The porters tried to shield their families from knowing what they endured for that steady paycheck. They didn’t talk to their families about the indignities they
endured in the workplace. Nor did they talk publicly about their low wages, long hours, and brutal treatment by supervisors, again because their families might
hear.
The porters reduced their frustration by laughing at the indignities when they were together and unlikely to be overheard by the traveling public or by
supervisors. They supported one another at work, but they rarely socialized together in case their families might learn about the humiliations.
Many of the original porters were illiterate. They learned to read from discarded newspapers and magazines left by passengers; they also carried Black press
from the North and tossed newspapers and magazines off the trains to African Americans in rural areas who otherwise had no access to reading materials. The
porters bought records by African American artists in Chicago and New York and sold them in the Deep South, where stores wouldn’t stock them.
Many famous and influential Americans were Pullman Porters, the children of Pullman Porters, or the grandchildren of Pullman Porters. A couple of
examples follow: Matthew Henson, who reached the North Pole first in 1906, on the expedition organized by Robert E. Peary, had been a Pullman Porter.
William “Big Bill” Broonzy, famous for his blues music, had also been a Pullman Porter. Malcolm X had worked as a Pullman Porter when he was a young man.
Elaine Jones, whose father had been an illiterate Pullman Porter, was the first African American woman to be accepted at the University of Virginia Law
School; her mother taught her father to read, and he financed his three children through professional school on his porter’s salary.
The people who planned the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 were porters or had connections to the porters. The Ladies’ Auxiliary to the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters collected donations, spread leaflets, and put up posters to raise support for the march. They had arranged sleeping and
eating places for the marchers. They had also organized a 500-man crew, many of whom were Pullman Porters, to clean up the Mall after the march.
The planners expected 100,000 people to participate; more than 250,000 came and heard Martin Luther King, Jr., give his “I Have a Dream” speech.
The legacy of the porters was that their children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews not only received bachelor’s degrees but also earned professional
degrees. The porters became a major force behind today’s African American professional class and intelligentsia. They left their children and grandchildren not
only with the value of holding onto a secure job, but also of providing leadership in church and community, and of believing in their own social mobility. Their
children and grandchildren achieved great accomplishments in education, politics, engineering, medicine, and business.
The porters were trained and worked out of the railroad hubs like Chicago, New York, or Boston. When they went for the training program, they would rent a
room in a rooming house, a practice which they also did when they had long layovers in other cities. Sometimes, Pullman would allow them to sleep in empty
sleeping cars on the siding.
Once they had passed the training program and were guaranteed a steady, albeit low, income, they would rent apartments and bring their families north;
they often worked second jobs when they weren’t on the railroad.
The men worked 400 hours a month, got three hours of sleep a night, and stayed on the road for a month at a time. If there were no conductor available,
then a porter would be given his responsibilities and called the porter-in-charge but paid $50 to $150 less than conductors.
Although this was the best blue-collar job open to African American men at the time, the attitude of the porters changed from getting Pullman jobs for their
fathers, brothers, sons, and nephews to getting education for their sons and daughters, so that the children could enter other fields of work.
Because no hospital would hire African Americans, two brothers who had both earned M.D.s worked for 10 years as porters to save enough money to open their
own medical practice.
Being a Pullman Porter was a desirable job for students; they could earn tuition during summers, which were peak travel times. Hiring college students
during the summer ended in the 1920s when the Pullman Company violently engaged in union-busting activity.
Because the porters were gone for long periods of times, their wives coped as single parents and also worked to supplement the family income. As the family
income grew, they were able to buy homes, cars, and televisions; they also managed to save money to send their children to college. The porters, who
themselves had been illiterate newly-freed slaves, clearly understood the importance of education. They instilled in their children the value of working hard to
achieve the goal of bettering their lives.
For example, James Kennard moved his family to California because it was the least segregated place that he encountered on his travels. Once there, he
fought to enroll his son in the White school because he wanted a better education for the child.
The porters were rarely addressed by their own names; they were often called George, or boy, or uncle, or worse …. by supervisors as well as by passengers.
The porters tried to shield their families from knowing what they endured for that steady paycheck. They didn’t talk to their families about the indignities they
endured in the workplace. Nor did they talk publicly about their low wages, long hours, and brutal treatment by supervisors, again because their families might
hear.
The porters reduced their frustration by laughing at the indignities when they were together and unlikely to be overheard by the traveling public or by
supervisors. They supported one another at work, but they rarely socialized together in case their families might learn about the humiliations.
Many of the original porters were illiterate. They learned to read from discarded newspapers and magazines left by passengers; they also carried Black press
from the North and tossed newspapers and magazines off the trains to African Americans in rural areas who otherwise had no access to reading materials. The
porters bought records by African American artists in Chicago and New York and sold them in the Deep South, where stores wouldn’t stock them.
Many famous and influential Americans were Pullman Porters, the children of Pullman Porters, or the grandchildren of Pullman Porters. A couple of
examples follow: Matthew Henson, who reached the North Pole first in 1906, on the expedition organized by Robert E. Peary, had been a Pullman Porter.
William “Big Bill” Broonzy, famous for his blues music, had also been a Pullman Porter. Malcolm X had worked as a Pullman Porter when he was a young man.
Elaine Jones, whose father had been an illiterate Pullman Porter, was the first African American woman to be accepted at the University of Virginia Law
School; her mother taught her father to read, and he financed his three children through professional school on his porter’s salary.
The people who planned the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 were porters or had connections to the porters. The Ladies’ Auxiliary to the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters collected donations, spread leaflets, and put up posters to raise support for the march. They had arranged sleeping and
eating places for the marchers. They had also organized a 500-man crew, many of whom were Pullman Porters, to clean up the Mall after the march.
The planners expected 100,000 people to participate; more than 250,000 came and heard Martin Luther King, Jr., give his “I Have a Dream” speech.
The legacy of the porters was that their children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews not only received bachelor’s degrees but also earned professional
degrees. The porters became a major force behind today’s African American professional class and intelligentsia. They left their children and grandchildren not
only with the value of holding onto a secure job, but also of providing leadership in church and community, and of believing in their own social mobility. Their
children and grandchildren achieved great accomplishments in education, politics, engineering, medicine, and business.