Pullman Porters’ Malice in the Palace

Happy Black History Month. We’ll start this piece off with a not too well-known thing about Blacks and the railroads of the USA. You already know about how Blacks built most of the railroad systems that existing in America, post slavery, and Asians doing the same for the pacific northwest region, but there is some business related to a certain type of train car that needs some pointing out. This train car was called the “Pullman Palace Car.” You can thank this train for YOU eating lobster today and not being perceived as a homeless, low class slave or prisoner. Yeah, until Pullman Palace Cars served lobsters, lobsters were considered “cockroaches of the sea” and if you ate it, people would look down on you in high society. Because it was cheap, train owners would serve this to unsuspecting people and served as a delicacy. Trains didn’t have dining cars, initially, and they arrived with the Pullman Palace Car. The train gets its name from the capitalist pig* and Engineer George Pullman, who is best known for stiffing Americans of all races out of opportunity, being a slum lord, and gaining favor with politicians for allowing the military to come kill 20 of his workers when they went on strike against Pullman and his company, the Pullman Company, in the Pullman Strike. See, tycoons, including railroad tycoons, used to setup mini towns out of nowhere to get workers to easily go work for them, then back to housing, but would charge ridiculous rent fees, and reclaim most of the post to pay someone right back because they owned everything in the towns they created. These were called “Company Towns” and Pullman set these up wherever he had business. He built the town you know as Pullman, Illinois (Southside Chicago) as the best model “company town” but his designs were to keep people stuck in his towns so they can’t go far because there is nowhere else to go, thus you’d work and never want to leave him. These fancy brick homes were to attract the best of the best skilled workers, but when he got you there, he controlled everything you read and did—no lie, he limited the fun you could have in his towns! In Chicago, 2 major strikes happened against Pullman and his railroad business, the first failing locally, and the second one a big one that went national. These strikes were by the dominant society protesting Pullman being a cheat and thief who didn’t want to pay people and exploited them in these Company Towns he setup to further get his money back. That second strike targeted any railroad/train company that carried his Pullman Palace Cars, and the strikers wanted to hurt Pullman big time by pressuring any railroad associating with him, in 1894. How bad could Pullman be that he would do this to his own people and make 4,000 of them do a nationwide operation against his Pullman Palace Car operation? Yeah, that bad.

Any chance they got to stick it to him, they did, and that would have huge consequences as he linked up with the government and got people killed when they went on strike that last time. The guy was desperate, because the economy failed (depression) in 1893 and his Pullman Palace Cars were too expensive for railroad companies to want to purchase them anyway, so this strike could have been a nail in the coffin for this business. Pullman never forgot this uprising by European descendants! Pullman attempted to squash formations of unions for the workers, as he saw the rebellions coming to his capitalism. He ultimately made it so that if you joined a union, you lost your job. He cut wages for everyone but would not reduce the cost of rent in his Company Towns he made where he profited off of every time anyone spent, and that’s when the strikes broke out. He was a complete cheat, and people claim he was only that way late in life, and only because of the depression of 1893. Pullman was a foul devil, who saw that he needed to step it up on his capitalism and exploit someone more vulnerable than these European descendants who are going to do physical and financial harm if he continued his capitalism. See, without enslavement of Blacks being allowed in USA, all the American thieves had to go exploit non-Blacks to earn a penny, and it’s because of these riots and strikes by the European descendants in 1894 that you have the US Holiday “LABOR DAY” for the massacre and failure of these American thief tycoons to stop the number Unions from being formed to protest how they were getting treated like SLAVES! This was the country’s attempt to stop rebellion and it worked. They had the American holiday “May Day” due to the same reasons in 1886, when people demanded to work less hours and finally Americans got the standard of 8-hour workdays. It comes from people ready to destroy everything because they were working like slaves to other European descendants. Pullman was not trying to pay, so you think his treachery stopped at European descendants?! Hell no! Pullman decided to step up his game on a more vulnerable population, docile and desperate, the Black population that came out of slavery!

George Pullman was a goddamn crook, and his fancy Pullman Palace Cars were designed to be the crème de la crème of train cars, designed for the rich and elite people. The cars were designed to have beds in them, or places to sleep while the passengers travelled over longer journeys, and he would pay railroads to carry his cars on them. He would make his money back on the services he charged via the Pullman Palace Cars, or Pullman Sleeper Cars—Sleepers because the name because they had the beds. These Pullman Sleeper cars were not created by him, they were created in UK, and Pullman just took the idea and added a unique element that didn’t exist in UK, that are most likely more famous to you in image and therefore you’d recognize them, than the trains themselves—BLACK MEN, aka PORTERS. You’ve seen many movies with the Pullman Cars and didn’t notice, such as Wild Wild West with Will Smith or in The Polar Express with Tom Hanks, that whole North Pole neighborhood is designed after the Pullman, Chicago, Illinois headquarters from Pullman Company’s foundation. So, here we have this Pullman issue in movies and conveniently stepped over was the whole draw of the Pullman Palace Cars, which was the malice in the palace against Black men who worked the Pullman cars. These Black men are more famous than that cars themselves, and non-Blacks don’t even realize why these Pullman cars are so celebrated in USA. It’s due to something more sinister than you all really know, and it was up to Black culture to spin out of that disaster to make something positive of it–which is the very definition of Black Culture of FBA/ADOS of USA even to this day. Yeah, see the UK versions didn’t sell because there were not elements of servitude that was acceptable to European descendants worldwide, so Pullman decided he needed something unique to be profitable, and boy did he find it! These cars were luxurious and made for the rich to travel in style, kick up their feet and be serviced like Kings and Queens—that is only European descendants, of course. So that’s one element he used to be profitable. But who was going to service these rich people and bow to their every will? Well, it wasn’t going to be other European descendants, that’s for sure, Pullman knew that’s why all other sleep car companies failed! I just told you they went immediately to make Unions when none existed before due to the horrible treatments by tycoons like Pullman.

Only Blacks would endure such abuse due to lack of work elsewhere at the time. These Blacks are famously seen in movies featuring European descendants having their life fantasies of traveling by train across the country being waited on with ‘white glove service’ of Black men. Pullman knew that if he put Black men in there, catering to European descendants like former slave days, he could be profitable. That was his formula for success, Black servant train porters—aka PULLMAN PORTERS. 🤦🏾  Pullman Porters were all Black men, and Pullman knew that many had no sources of income after being release from slavery, so he knew they would be vulnerable to exploitation, from former slave mentality and economically being poor. “He gave them opportunity” is how American likes to paint the narrative but there is a reason why they were ALL BLACK everywhere they were, it was a business strategy by Pullman. Ultimately, these Black men were smart enough to do a few major strategies to turn the tables on Pullman’s plan, to find a silver lining in this exploitation, which is what Black culture IS defined by! But this topic is highly controversial because, well, DIDN’T PULLMAN COMPANY HELP BLACKS? Let’s explore this. Pullman Porters was the branding of them by George Pullman, and these Pullman Porters were to give bend over backward services such as shuffling and carrying luggage for passengers, cleaning all the rooms, cars, making beds, all this maid service stuff, and most importantly, COOKING, for all the European descendant passengers. At the height of employment, more than 20,000 Black men worked as Pullman Porters, and nobody but Blacks would subject themselves to the poor working conditions and humiliation rituals that Pullman Company promoted with this business strategy of demoralizing Black men for European descandent enjoyment. That made many European descendants feel very empowered again, after slavery was over, to be negative towards Blacks, and Pullman gave them this powerful experience at the expense of Pullman Porter Black men.

On the trains, George Pullman himself would often be present in some locations, and when he saw the Pullman Porters, he had a disrespect for them like no other. This is how you know he was full of shyte and so were Americans when they try to paint his business model as “he gave them opportunity.” Yes, technically he did, so he could exploit them. He would constantly disrespect these Black men in front of others, and you can call what he did ‘trolling’ with other disgusting ways he treated the Pullman Porters. For instance, the symbolic branding of the men didn’t stop at Pullman Porters, which had to have his name who they were defined as, but he never acknowledged them as human beings. To highlight that, if anyone European in origin was around when he was addressing the Black porters, he would make sure to call them ‘George,’ which of course was his own name. He would belittle them and do psychological warfare on them, knowing they were at his mercy, and he branded them by calling them this constantly, ignoring their real names as if they don’t matter, and branding them Pullman Porters. This is what he encouraged so the passengers did it too to feel empowered over Blacks post-Slavery. This dehumanization was part of George Pullman’s business strategy, and you see this today with your Tendernism Black old fool you call ‘Unc.‘ Blacks get mad when they see Blacks openly exploited when those exploited Blacks can’t see that they should do for themselves, and that goes back to time such as with these Pullman Porters and the abuse they suffered to get paid and make better lives for themselves. It reminds everyone of slaves with no options getting exploited for not being educated enough to know their worth–however, this is a problem with Pullman Porters and why it’s so controversial. The humiliation ritual, this was symbolic of slavery, where the slave master owned the slaves and the slaves inherited his name so all could know what European descendant male owned the Blacks. That’s what his naming scheme was designed to do, punish them. The wild thing is nobody else would do this kind of work, although it seems so easy when you think about it without true context. Pullman had the Pullman Porters working around 400 hours a month—you (today), on average by law, work 35 hours a week, 4 weeks a month so that’s 140 hours!

They worked more than double the hours you do. If they happened to make it to the destination before that, maybe there is a break a slight break if they complete the 11k miles in travel that a car would travel, but they mostly got 3-4 hours of sleep only and worked 20 hours every day of the week. Remember, there were bed there, these trains went over night and over long distances and these Black men had to stay awake most of the day. This was slavery torture and Pullman was trying to pull off something similar to slavery. Most of the Pullman Porters did not get paid or got paid peanuts by Pullman. That was his whole purpose of hiring Blacks, because they’d do that work and keep working even if he would not pay them. Pullman knew the Blacks were not like all those European descendants who would refuse to do any of this work the Blacks were doing and he knew no one would dare stop him from exploiting these Black men. From the outside, everyone says “he gave them opportunity” but the reality is, all of them relied on getting TIPS from the passengers as their pay for the work they did! 😣 People wonder why you have to tip waiters in restaurants, in the USA, well, that also comes directly from this Pullman Palace Cars era and Black American history that gets you people tips TODAY. You’re welcome. No, that’s documented, don’t try to dispute it. You people defending not paying waiters a fare wage, citing “they get tips!” you are just like your dirty, disgusting forefathers! If you want a really good piece on tipping in America, that will disgust you further, check this here. Yeah, Pullman was bleeding the Blacks dry to make his fortune, the true tyrant and capitalist he was, he was doing slavery and leaving the compensation for work up to the discretion of the passengers, who hopefully felt guilty enough to tip. This was something picked up in Europe first—yes tipping was a European exploit—but later came to be seen as disrespect and classist by Europe, so they stopped. America, after the Civil War, figured they could extend the benefits of slavery doing this to get free labor, as they did with the Pullam Porters. Everyone knew he wasn’t paying those Blacks. In fact, European descendant passengers would constantly abuse and disrespect the Pullman Porters because on those trains, they were Gods. Pullman encouraged the passengers to call the Pullman Porters ‘George’ if hoping to address them, so he knew the kind of environment he created aboard those Pullman Palace Cars. You could ride the Pullman Cars and feel like a Settler enslaver again, all in style, as a European descendant passenger, which was part of marketing.

Anyone subjecting himself to such brutal work conditions had to be crazy, right? This madness continued well into the 1960s, and over time, Black men were able to realize that silver lining some of the original workers saw. Being a Pullman Porter, getting tips that were better than getting nothing, still got saved and used for the betterment of the Black community. It helped to create a Black middle class ultimately, and because so many Black men were constantly traveling over great distances, the ability to travel helped many gain more perspective in life—YOU get the point of why this story is on this site yet? You should be traveling and seeing things, getting a purpose, exposing yourself to what is life on the OUTSIDE. All that traveling allowed these Black men to see a lot of America, even if from an oppressed, second-class citizen view, it was better than being in poor areas, starving, doing nothing. That traveling is what many ultimately saw as a scheme to get themselves across the country, and beyond, apparently. The ‘Great Migration’ is the period between 1910 and 1970 where over 6 million Blacks away from treacherous European descendants in the south of USA, to areas of the USA with a little less dangerous and hostile European descendants in the North to West. It was not completely safe, racists existed everywhere, but it wasn’t as bad as the south, as the south is mostly still that way today. Jim Crow was almost a full 100 years that went from after slavery to the Civil Rights era (1877 to 1965). These Pullman Porters were seeing outside of their local communities for once and realized this was an opportunity to get away from the overt racists who were often very physical with violence in the south, and Pullman Porters learned to see that there was more of America to explore that would be less harmful to their families. It only took traveling to set their minds free, which is why we here encourage you all to do this, to get away from your immediate area to see outside and you can easily start to learn how your native environment is destroying you.

After this period of breaking free, somewhat. A. Philip Randolph, a Black man, was able to create a union for the Pullman Porters, August 25, 1925, in fact it was the first major Union for Black workers, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). Plans for change came together and wages were improved; work conditions were improved and the BSCP forced the Pullman Company to do better for the Black employees. So while working on these Pullman cars, word spread about multiple levels of mobility, upward and physically, as news travelled about the Civil Rights via news carried orally and in publications (Chicago Defender), and this Pullman Porter resistance played a major part in progression of Blacks in America, despite the scam and exploitation of the George Pullman and his exploitation scheme. It was Black culture that persevered here, to push for a better day. You know what that tenacity and fire to push for better lives for Blacks caused? Remember all those people who, about Blacks, claimed the Pullman Company was “gave them opportunity?” Well, this is when it really when this sentiment came to be. You read it earlier when I said it, but you probably thought that was European descendant dominant society people who were saying that. No, no… it was BLACK PEOPLE who were mad at the BSCP for creating that union to get Black people fair wages, and better working conditions. 🤦🏾 Was George Pullman a monster or a savior? That’s how complicated this Pullman Palace Car and Pullman Porter issue was back then. Why? You could ultimately earn a decent living and go to college or own a home (redlining withstanding) with money you made from this Pullman Porter job, but there were many catches to this, mainly, worker abuse. Who could endure the harsh treatment to see the bigger picture? The only people willing to do this were the people who were forced to do it under slavery!

This formation to make better lives for these Black Pullman Porters caused a big fight with other fried chicken Christian Blacks leaders who just wanted status quo and loved to be subservient to European descendants and wanted no change in status for Blacks. Pullman Company decided that if any Blacks joined the BSCP union they would be fired and not allowed to ever work with Pullman Company ever again. This caused many Black men to turn on the BSCP because they didn’t want to lose their jobs, which depleted the membership of the BSCP out of fear to lose money. This made A. Philip Randolph spring into action as someone who was not a Pullman employee, he couldn’t be fired, and helped ensure the BSCP would endure the rough times. He created the publication, The Messenger, which spread the word about the power of unionization, and he also used that Pullman Car travel to send the world through, state to state, using the Pullman Porters. Here, you have spreading of Black news and information when there was no internet to disseminate information. That was another major advantage of work on these Pullman palace cars! Word could spread all over the Americas through the Pullman Porters, which they’d spread to other workers in other regions for other Blacks to get on code! A. Philip Randolph directly attacked the Pullman Company and George Pullman directly in the publications– doubly controversial. Randolph organized a strike, or tried to anyway, but couldn’t get those Blacks of the time to strike (too scared to lose money) 🤡 However, the news spreading via the Messenger paper helped to get attention to the unfair practices of the Pullman Company, which was equally effective in the end. The BSCP copied another union that was successful in getting their rights, and use that momentum and already approved plans to get the same liberties for Pullman Porters. Ultimately, that’s the split feeling about the Pullman cars because half of the people say Pullman exploited Blacks and the other half claims Pullman saved Blacks. Despite Pullman not paying Blacks, proximity to European descendants is what many fried chicken Christian Blacks were aiming for, and they refused to see Pullman Company as villains in this story. This whole saga with the Pullman Company led to the company being one of the best paying jobs after A. Philip Randolph got the union to be respected, which is why the Pullman Porter will always be a staple in Black history because even Malcolm X, Red Foxx and other activists and entertainers got their starts being Pullman Porters. Using the job of Pullman Porter allowed Black men to even expand into Canada. This is the interesting part about that Great Migration, that I’ll end this piece on. Many people don’t know that these Pullman cars operated in USA, Canada and Mexico. This means that Black American men were living in these Pullman Company Towns wherever George Pullman set them up when he branched out. It also meant that using this strategy of not paying Blacks and using Black men and servants appealed to many rich people all over North America, including Canada (1885). This Great Migration also included Black American men, and their families, going from USA to Canada. Montreal was a city that in 1880s, many of the Black American escaped USA because Canada was a lot better to them than the USA. They escaped via the northeast USA trains into Montreal from places like New York. They used these Pullman Porter jobs to get up there too! American Blacks are part of the growing of the Montreal population of first Blacks to establish themselves, in the historic former Saint-Antoine / Little Burgundy neighborhood of Montreal.

As far back as 1834 there were these little Black neighborhoods popping up but that was mostly British abolishing slavery. This is where West Indians were coming from, but they had no mobility to make it around and their histories are largely undocumented too. I went to an exhibit in Montreal about this history, but that is not to be confused with what happened due to needing to be in proximity to work at Pullman Company. The former slaves and runway Black Americans who made it to places like Novascotia did not get over here, and Quebec had no accommodations for Blacks in earliest 1800s and before. There were many Black Loyalists, people who fought for Britain, who were escaped slaves from the USA who settled in Canada. It is simply not true that all the Blacks in Canada were from the West Indies, because the point of the Star Spangled Banner’s 3rd stanza is dissing Black former slaves who got promised freedom if they fought for the British. Then by the War of 1812, there were many American Blacks there in Canada. In fact, many of the people you think were originally West Indian, were Black Refugees escaping slavery and they got put in British Colonies in the West Indies, so they’re not originally from these islands! They’re Black Americans who settle in British colonies. Reparations is very difficult to pin down who should get paid, due to British and French movement of American Blacks. This Pullman Porter scenario is well documented migration, a tool to fight against white oppression of Blacks, but anywhere we went, we still ended up with racism so we had to revert to CULTURE to survive where we went. As it relates to the last Great Migration, the Pullman Company is responsible for this population ending up in Canada, post-US slavery. The neighborhood inspired by Black Americans is the one that got the recognition that made it a huge target of racism, Little Burgundy–named after a guy controlling the town, not a slight to Blacks. Little burgundy had the Black Americans in it, so this means it turned out to be what Canadians called the “Harlem of the North.” This name came due to the thriving Black American culture scene like heavy Jazz that attracted many from outside to come to this area, just like in the USA. Harlem = Black Americans! This is due to American Black men, as our culture was ported there in Montreal and those Black men built businesses, and had this mentality from start because they were not bound by the limitation of thinking of left behind Black America who were pacified by the Civil Rights era of Blacks in USA—which was thriving Black American communities who did business and enterprise despite heavy discrimination until Civil Rights in USA. This neighborhood was created in 1887, 1 year after the Pullman Company setup the Company Town in Montreal for the Black Porters, next to two railway setups, and lasted until the 1970s. These Black men helped birth the first stable Black communities with the families they brought or made in Montreal. Now in Montreal, these Black American, along with West Indians who also did these Pullman Porter jobs, they started making businesses, put up a church and as a community bonded to survive. The Pullman sleeping cars thrived in Canada because there were racist snooty people up there too, in fact, the racist these Blacks faced in Canada was pretty bad too, as Blacks were targeted for discrimination in housing and the pay, they received in Canada was even less than in USA. George Pullman was up to his ways, always, he was going to cheapest wages possible for the horrible working conditions possible. Imagine the Black people moving from USA thinking they’d have a better life in Montreal, and then they find out racist European descendants existed all over the world. These Blacks expanded outside of the Pullman Town controls and ended up being in a version of SEGREGATION in Canada—yes, they had that even in Montreal Canada! Ultimately, the racist Canadian government of Montreal destroyed this Black neighborhood and did not want Black businesses and community to thrive as it was doing.

Many of the originals to the Black neighborhood were undocumented when they were released to the greater Canadian society, post British slavery, but for sure when the Pullman Porters came through, you know many people ditched the company and stayed in Canada likely illegally initially because many did not return after they set up remote businesses. That’s a not of Blacks unaccounted for in history and nobody knows how many of them got there–except we through, right? These Pullman Porters created the expansion via the Pullman cars. Up to the early 1900s, the Black church was proving support to the Black communities and this was all thriving thanks to Black Americans, as the congregations were started by the Pullman Porters, not islanders. Most of these FBA Blacks were coming from Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. that Blacks worked with Blacks to build despite the railroad companies trying to prevent Blacks from getting on trains to land in Canada. The next biggest group of Blacks were West Indian women, who were brought in to be nannies to Canadian-European descendants’ babies. The FBAs took care of these West Indians and helped them survive too. Many of those Pullman Porters stayed in Canada, they didn’t go back to USA after they made those businesses. Pullman Company expanded the same housing models in Canada so some porters were there shortly and some jumped shipped and stayed in the neighborhoods they built with West Indians–until Canada made their Immigration Act of 1906 and aimed to get rid of these FBAs. It was highly anti-immigration of Blacks specifically, because they were making other Blacks rise up and move to the middle class and the Black church was financially supporting any Blacks that Canada ignored and marginalized. What was the European descendants churches doing for Blacks in Canada? REJECTING BLACK PEOPLE from entering their churches, so Blacks had to create their own churches and support themselves. Yeah, CANADA did that! They’re not any different from their people in USA in racists areas. Canada wanted Blacks suppressed and gone because of this FBA support in Canada. On top of that, the non-Black employees of Pullman Company started doing their typical genetic makeup racism towards the Blacks and pushed them out of these towns when they had to be together and these Black neighborhoods has to be NEAR the Pullman Company Towns at a point, to not mix European descendants and Blacks.

This was a huge problem in Canada, and this forced segregation of Blacks. By the time the Canadian government stamped out the Black communities, systematically, likely, the immigration issue was also part of this but it was the progress these Black cultures were making despite the racial oppression that really upset them. The West Indians were allowed to grow themselves because they were legally allowed to be in Canada, so coming together helped both communities survive. Despite this, the government wanted that bond destroyed and destroyed other thriving Black communities at the same time, in a targeted manner, in Canada. Sound familiar like the history of America, doesn’t it? Yeah, they got those Blacks out of the region to destroy wealth and community in Canada. That’s why so many Blacks and their origins are unknown except from folk lore in Montreal, and many don’t even know the origin is this Pullman Porter job and Pullman Company and how majorly this huge event in time, controversial as it was, helped Black Americans expand out to have better lives. They were part of those first Black communities in Canada, despite you thinking that only West Indians and Africans built those communities. We survive anywhere; that’s what is means to have Black culture that some of these non-FBA folks can’t understand since they have no fight. Oh, and Pullman Company exploited Blacks, point blank. However, the blessing was these Blacks were a different breed of Blacks, a kind I wish we would return to quite frankly. They used OPPORTUNITY to flip the exploitation into advantages for themselves, rather than just crying about the victimhood, and oppression. The oppression was not going to stop, anywhere, so best to stack your funds, build your family and enterprise. This is Black culture, and post Civil Rights, the baby boomers completely destroyed the Black communities by allowing American European descendant racist to destroy all that great spirit of being Black that we observed in people such as the Pullman Porters. Black women started pretending to be privileged European descendant woman and then took welfare payments to destroy the Black family, and those two alone with female separatists and nihilists of the Black community reversed all the fight Blacks had through Reconstruction, Jim Crow and pre-Civil Rights era. You can hate MLK, for being a supreme pacifist, but he didn’t tell not a damn soul to go be a phlegmenist, to adopt supremacist ideology to hate Black men cut from the cloth of these Black male Pullman Porters and to go reproduce with ignorant street gang thugs, players, pretty boys and to take welfare like they do today. Anyone that has betrayed the Black community and the spirit of all our struggles prior to Civil Rights.

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.

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