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Founder, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters · 1889–1979
Built the first major Black union — and tied labor to civil rights.
Organized Pullman's sleeping-car porters into the first major African American labor union, winning recognition and a contract in 1937 after a decade-long fight. He went on to architect the 1963 March on Washington.
Disciplined mass organizing
He fused patient union-building with the moral force of the civil-rights movement, and used the credible threat of mass action — a planned 1941 march — to win a federal fair-employment order.
A recognized, professionalized porter workforce gave the Pullman Company stability and a brand of dignified service, while Black workers won the wages, hours, and respect long denied them.
Organizing and the broader mission reinforce each other — a respected workforce served the company and the community at once.
“Freedom is never granted; it is won.”— A. Philip Randolph
Source: AFL-CIO labor history
The framework they used
The De-escalation Ladder