The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

Photo of display case shelf with photographs and documents celebrating the centennial of the founding of the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters — Some of the materials about the history of the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters labor union on display at La Pintoresca Branch Library in February

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was the First African-American Trade Union, founded in 1925

The 2025 theme for Black History Month is Labor, in commemoration of the centennial of the founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). PPL’s La Pintoresca Branch Library has created a display celebrating the BSCP, with assistance from the La Pintoresca Library Associates and with photo/material permissions from the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Public Library. Here’s some background on the history of that movement:

When George M. Pullman developed the luxurious sleeper cars that became popular in the last decades of the 19th Century, his company provided not only the cars, but the workforce to wait on the guests. Pullman drew this workforce from the millions of recently emancipated, formerly enslaved people, and counted on them being willing to work long hours on little sleep for the benefit of having a paying job. Their salary was very small, and they worked grueling hours with little or no sleep, yet had to be eternally ingratiating to their white customers because they practically lived on tips. They also had to provide their own uniforms and other work expenses out of their small incomes. Furthermore, their work was often degrading, and they were all called “George,” in the tradition of referring to a slave by his master’s name.

Under pressure to negotiate working conditions with its workforce, the Pullman Company created its own union, but that union did not adequately represent the porters. So in 1925, Ashley Totten and A. Philip Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. It became the first African American union recognized by the American Federation of Labor, and after years of struggle, the BSCP was finally recognized by the Pullman Company and successfully negotiated for higher salaries, more reasonable work weeks, and better working conditions.

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters relied heavily upon the strength, organizing prowess and moral support of its Ladies Auxiliary. Many of them were maids on the Pullman cars, though most were wives of porters. They helped fundraise for the Brotherhood when its New York chapter was evicted, and their networks were critical in the organization of the March on Washington Movement. Wives were also able to carry on some of the unionizing work that their husbands could not, being freer to speak out since they themselves were not employees of the Pullman Company.

On the West Coast, Cottrell Laurence Dellums emerged as one of the main leaders of the BSCP, and his papers, preserved by the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Public Library, give us a deeper look at the makings of this historic movement.

Here are some of the things you will find in our display:

Beautiful model train cars for the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe “Super Chief,” including sleeping cars, and photos from Pasadena’s collection showing the Super Chief in Pasadena (see our Instagram post on “The Super Chief’s history in Pasadena: “The Train of the Stars”)
Print reproductions of original BSCP documents which were accessed from the African American Museum and Library at Oakland Public Library, including: a membership card, a flyer advertising a Los Angeles chapter’s meeting, articles from Randolph’s newsletter The Messenger.
Photo reproductions:
- Members of the Ladies Auxiliary holding banners in a street parade in 1950
- Ashley Totten in 1950 at a meeting
- Group photograph of six sleeping car porters in uniform, 1965
- C. L. Dellums speaking in front of a session of the 28th anniversary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Los Angeles Division, 1953
- C. L. Dellums, Ashley Totten, and A. Philip Randolph speaking to Los Angeles Division, 1953