A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
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February 17, 1927 letter from A. Philip Randolph to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), entreating them not to accept the Pullman Company's in-house Employee Representation Plan.
Courtesy of African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.), Dellums (Cottrell Laurence) Papers.
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Telegram from June 1928 to Randolph from William Green, President of the AFL, advising Randolph to cancel an upcoming strike of Pullman porters and maids for strategic reasons: "Because of a lack of understanding public opinion has not been crystallized in support of your demands." Randolph would later call off the strike.
Courtesy of African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.), Dellums (Cottrell Laurence) Papers.
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February 11, 1932 letter from Randolph to Brotherhood organizers, advising them what to tell the Sleeping Car Porters after the Pullman Company enacted a retaliatory five dollar pay cut.
Courtesy of African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.), Dellums (Cottrell Laurence) Papers.
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February 17, 1932 letter from Randolph to C. L. Dellums, BSCP president, in the wake of the Pullman pay cut.
Courtesy of African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.), Dellums (Cottrell Laurence) Papers.
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Portrait photograph of Randolph taken during the 1960s or 70s.
Courtesy of the Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, Georgia State AFL-CIO records.
The Pullman Railroad Company exploited African American porters and maids with lower wages than their white counterparts and trapped them in subordinate positions without the possibility of promotion or seniority. The AFL would not advocate for Black workers, so the workers had to organize themselves. The Pullman Company quashed every effort until 1925, when A. Philip Randolph, working out of New York City, unionized many Pullman porters and became the first president of the BSCP. The union’s struggle for recognition lasted until the AFL gave the BSCP its charter in 1935 and the Pullman Company granted its first contract in 1937. This was the first time the AFL had recognized a Black-led union. As a Black trade unionist and socialist, Randolph linked racial injustice to capitalism and understood the significance of grassroots organizing. The success of the BSCP and its support among Black community and religious leaders galvanized Black unionization in the 1930s, and by the early 1940s the CIO had organized around 400,000 Black industrial workers.