In 1867 Mr.George Pullman set a business precedent by hiring former genteel servants of the Plantation South. These emancipated slaves repaid Pullman with loyalty and dedicated service. It is said that these former slaves were grateful for the opportunity to stand proudly beside other working people. Pullman porters were supposedly working willingly and joyfully, "graciously receiving passengers, carrying luggage [and many other tasks] ... all with smile." (Mc Kissack) For many, pullman porters seemed to hold the ideal job which included good pay and excellent working conditions. The belief was that black pullman porters were essentially contended cosmopolitans who traveled to places most people only dreamed of.

The reality was that life was not glamorous for these men. For example, there were company spies specifically planted among them to report any potential union activity. These spies worked over time to catch porters who broke any of many rules set up to keep them in check. Pullman porters worked long hours and were required to perform every conceivable passenger service. The pullman porters were working with a smile, not because they were grateful, but because they had no choice. By 1886 porters received about $70 dollars a month. Most of their earnings went to purchase uniforms and meals while on the road. They depended almost entirely on tips to support their families. Hence, the facade of being happy, joyful and grateful. Their smiles masked the years of abuse they suffered at the hands of a tyranical management.

In 1893 Eugene Debs formed the American Railway Union. It was his intention to unite all railroad workers into a single union but white unionists refused to let go of the restriction on blacks. To Debs this decision would spell the downfall for the ARU. Consequently, when the ARU challenged the Pullman company in 1894, it was the black porters and other black railroad men who did not come to the Union's aid. In fact, the black press urged the African American to take the jobs left vacant by the strikers. In some areas black workers formed an Anti-Strikers railroad Union to get even with the ARU. The African American railroad workers' efforts was apparently successful because the Pullman Company defeated the strike and the ARU soon lost its power then eventually became non-existent.

When we were organizing the American Railway Union in 1893, I stood on the floor of that Convention all through its deliberations appealing to the delegates to open the door to admit the colored as well as the white man upon equal terms. They refused, and then came a strike and they expected the colored porters and waiters to stand by them. If they had only admitted these porters and waiters to membership in the American Railway Union there would have been a different story of that strike, for it would certainly have had a different result.

I remember one occasion down in Louisville, Kentucky, where we were organizing and they refused to admit colored workers to the union. A strike followed--a strike order exclusively by the white workers. After having ignored the colored workers and refused them admission, the strike came and the colored workers walked out with the white ones. Notwithstanding they had been excluded and insulted, they went out, and the strike had not lasted long until the white men went back to work and broke the strike, leaving the colored men out in the cold in spite of their loyalty to white workers.

Further information on the Pullman Porters.

Contributed by Andrea Kabwasa, American Culture Studies "1890s" course, Spring, 1997