United States 1925

Synopsis

Meeting secretly on the night of 25 August 1925 in the Elks Lodge on 129th Street in New York City's Harlem, 500 Pullman porters organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), which was to become the first successful African American labor union. The major goals of the newfound union were to win higher wages and shorter working hours and to draw support away from a company union called the Employee Representation Plan (ERP), led by blacks handpicked by the Pullman Company, the porters' employer. In its infancy, the BSCP had a difficult time winning support among the rank and file of Pullman porters, many of whom saw little difference between BSCP and the company union, besides which they were reluctant to risk incurring the company's wrath by organizing. Slowly but surely the new union grew, but winning recognition from...