Title: Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 1925-1945

Author: Beth Tompkins Bates

Year of Publication: 2001

Thesis:

Argues that early Civil Rights leaders, especially A. Phillip Randolph, contributed to the Modern Civil Rights Movement in reciprocal ways, but particularly showing how it was possible to build a base of Civil Rights activism from union activism. Randolph, she argues, was part of a younger vanguard of porters who called out the problems with respectability politics and sought to push for full citizenship, which included both economic and civic power. This book explains how patronage worked and why Black people would be averse to unionizing; then the shift to where they might be more interested.

Time: 1925-1945

Geography: U.S.

Organization:
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 - No More Servants in the House: Pullman Porters Strive For Full-Fledged Citizenship
- Strong presence as homeowners but slipped in prestige as factory jobs and firemen etc. appealed more to Black people (avoiding servility)
- Meatpacking, for example allowed for advancement (to butcher) & paid more
- DuBois voices the call for gaining manhood/dropping servility
- 1919 - Black men fight back in 26 cities
- **Randolph was not actually a porter - he was editor of the Messenger, and they asked him to organize the national union.
- 1st chapter is essentially a biography of Randolph
- Pullman patronizes one of the Chicago Defender society writers (45)
- Pastor of a chapel most influential, though.
- Contributions do amount to benefits in the community
- Explores the complicated relationship w/Carey (pastor) & union organizing - as business appealed Black people to get their support, they manipulated unions to foment racism/division. Very insidious plan.
- Company actually kept people on after they used them for strike busting. Wow. Curious about this.
- This chapter helps put into perspective the tipping culture in the U.S.
- Even the Chicago Defender ignored the BSCP for 2yrs - one wonders was it as simple as they didn’t want to draw attention to it? (54)
- See p.59 - Important to think about Black/white solidarity in union actions.
- Racial solidarity moves from moderate to aggressive political tactic & makes it more possible to align over class within black community (61)
2 - The Politics of Paternalism and Patronage in Black Chicago
3 - Biting the Hand that Feeds Us: Teh BSCP Battles Pullman
- CHICAGO CLUBWOMEN lead the charge
- Ida B. Wells Barnett very influential in helping BSCP
- Alpha Suffrage Club - Black women’s suffrage org.
- “Manhood” again also applying to women - see p.73
- Pullman buys a controlling interest in the “The Whip” & then changes rhetoric to attack BSCP
- Pullman company allegedly paid out Chicago Defender, who later has to support BSCP due to declining subscription
- The contract symbolizes “autonomy over day-to-day organization of work” quoted from Foner - (90)
Paternalism, 1925-1927
4 - Launching a Social Movement, 1928-1930
- Strike attempt got strong in-union votes but not from the community. Randolph called it off. This highlights how the BSCP could not work as independently as white unions did (or appeared to).
5 - Forging Alliances: New-Crowd Protest Networks, 1930-1935
- New-Crowd protest networks - making demands vs. working within structures
- Black Worker (successor to the Messenger - it’s the paper that BSCP used)
6 - New-Crowd Networks and the Course of Protest Politics, 1935-1940
7 - We are Americans, Too: The March on Washington Movement, 1941-1943
8 - Protest Politics Comes of Age
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Type:
Methods: Chronological
Sources: Archival papers in numerous locations, NAACP papers, personal papers, various secondary sources.
Historiography: Major intervention: Shows how BSCP works to get Black public opinion to change from patronage to collective action.
Keywords: manhood rights
Themes:
Critiques:
Questions: This makes me think I should look up comparative studies that have been done on different types of Black unionizing (ex: farming unions)
Quotes:
“The bscp used the company union to raise questions related not just to porters and maids but the status and place of all African Americans. Slavery was not a metaphor for black Americans as it was for white Americans; it did not represent a condition or experience for black Americans; it was the state of having one’s humanity reduced to what value it could command as a piece of real estate. Freedom, on the other hand, was employed and thought of metaphorically by black Americans, for it represented a state of possibilities, contingencies on a continuum that spread outward from slavery. Claiming manhood rights was to step out of the servant stereotype that cloaked the humanity of Black Americans” (91)

Notes:

Factoids: Lincoln’s death made it possible to make Pullman’s prototype get contracts. Tipping is another thing that comes up - ppl made $ that way, but b/c they weren’t paid that much. It made the servitude that much more bitter. This era also convinced Black people that unionizing could be profitable.