Black History Month Exhibition

“Fight or Be Slaves"
A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 

On View Through February 28, 2025
New York State Capitol

In recognition of the national 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor,” this exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a labor union that represented Black porters and maids who staffed Pullman Company railroad sleeping cars. It was the first Black union in the United States to be recognized by the American Federation of Labor.

Created in New York City and led by labor activist A. Philip Randolph, the Brotherhood expanded into regional chapters throughout the nation. Their efforts were instrumental in both the labor and national Civil Rights Movements, laying the groundwork for economic and social justice today. Using their slogan “Fight or Be Slaves,” A. Philip Randolph and all the brave porters who fought for their cause inspired generations of Black workers to positively change their communities, their state, and the nation for greater economic and social equality.
 

*Please note that historical documents in this exhibition may contain outdated and offensive terminology and depictions.

Pullman porter John Baptist Ford of New York with his family, c. 1924. Image courtesy of Larry Tye, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2004.
 

The Pullman Company, the nation’s largest employer of Black Americans at this time, capitalized on the rising unemployment of Black workers and reinforced a system of racial inferiority. George Pullman recognized that hiring Black men and women was cheaper, and he believed most white passengers would not feel “threatened” by a polite Black person serving them.  

Although they were essential for the business, porters were not seen as three-dimensional human employees but rather as quiet, smiling servants expected to provide the renowned hospitality synonymous with the Pullman brand.

Further dehumanizing the porters, passengers would hail them by the name “George,” based on the practice of naming enslaved peoples after their enslavers.

Striving for a better life, the porters sought recognition and value as essential laborers. Despite the exploitation and humiliation, porters were known for their work ethic and were honored in their communities as model citizens, even as their demanding schedules took them away from their families for weeks at a time. 

Pullman porters became the face of the company as an example of the royal treatment one could expect from a Pullman train ride. Advertisement featuring Pullman porters, courtesy of the Pullman State Historic Site. 

A porter’s wage was dependent on inconsistent tips from white passengers. Porters made less than half of a conductor’s salary but were not paid extra when they were called on to do conductors’ duties. They also wanted a regulated schedule – one that did not include “double backs” where there was no extra pay for a stay on a train during its return trip.

Lastly, they needed job security. Often, one line of dust on a windowsill or a sharp critique from a white passenger stood between them and their job.

“The Pullman Porter’s ‘Kick:’ ‘Say, Boss, if the public won’t pay me my wages any longer I guess the company’ll have to do it!’”Puck, 1901.
 

In the early part of the 20th century, the porters made several attempts to organize but had little success. They quickly realized that to organize successfully, the porters needed someone who did not have any association with the Pullman Company on their side.

In 1925, a porter from New York named Ashley L. Totten went to fellow New Yorker A. Philip Randolph for help. Randolph, a known labor activist and renowned orator, was sympathetic but also saw it as an opportunity to spread the greater message of Black unionism. He accepted the offer and in the same year, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids was born (“maids” was eventually dropped from the union’s name). Headquarters were established in New York City and soon, regional chapters sprung up across the country. Randolph used his publication, The Messenger, to help spread the word of their cause.

“The Pullman Company understands one thing and one thing only, and that is POWER and power will come when ALL ARE FOR EACH AND EACH FOR ALL.” - A. Philip Randolph. Image of A. Philip Randolph courtesy of the Library of Congress. 

After more than a decade of struggles with the Pullman Company, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1935 became the first Black union chartered by the American Federation of Labor. Two years later, it was granted its first contract. 

Officers of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Pictured are O. Manson, Bennie Smith, Ashley L. Totten, T.T. Patterson, A. Philip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, C.L. Dellums, and E.J. Bradley, 1937. Chicago History Museum, ICHi-022642, R.D. Jones, photographer.


Porters’ wages went up. A “normal conductor’s rate of hours a month,” (a 240-hour month, compared to a pre-unionization 400+ hours a month salary) was established. Schedules became more consistent and regulated. Lastly, Randolph insisted that every porter be given and addressed by a name card to emphasize that they were not the two-dimensional employees the company viewed them as.

In 1978, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters merged with the Brotherhood of Railway, Airline, Steamship, Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employees (BRAC). BRAC exists today as the Transportation Communications Union/IAM. No matter its name, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters left an enduring legacy in labor and civil rights history. 

A. Philip Randolph went on to become a leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. According to several interviews with retired porters and their relatives, unionization was a secondary bonus to the confidence instilled in them by Randolph to fight for their rights.

Mrs. Rosina Tucker, a porter’s wife and former member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, believed the union had long-lasting effects for future generations:

“The Brotherhood brought out qualities of strength and courage in the porters and their wives. They became leaders in their communities, bought homes, and sent their children to college. Thus, the porters were able to give their sons and daughters the opportunities they themselves had been denied, to become lawyers and teachers and businessmen.”                     

E.D. Nixon, a former porter who played an instrumental role in organizing the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, commented on the significance of Randolph’s labor movement:

           “The Civil Rights Movement saw to it that black people were able to do things legally, like ride on a Pullman car, say. But the labor movement saw to it that black people had the money to buy the ticket to ride on the Pullman cars, see? What good is it to have the right to do something, if you don’t have the money to do it? The labor movement gave black people the opportunity to do things that the Civil Rights Movement gave the right to do.” 

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters' success inspired the growth of unions across the nation, emphasizing the importance of collective bargaining as a tool for securing better wages and working conditions. Additionally, their success became an example of how grassroots organizing can challenge systemic inequality to effect change - an essential principle for labor advocacy today.

E. D. Nixon escorting Rosa Parks into the Montgomery Courthouse, 1956.