Public Employee Press

February is Black History Month
DC 37 honors Dr. King

District Council 37 celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 13 at the union hall by honoring the humble beginnings of the slain visionary and the transforming power the civil rights movement has wielded in this nation.

“There are so many lessons we can draw from Dr. King’s life as an activist,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “His humility and concern, as he carried the weight of the people on his back. His leadership, which was truly connected to the livelihoods of union members. We remember that he was assassinated fighting for the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis.”

The union’s ceremony blended the grassroots tradition of song — led by balladeer and Local 1549 member John Rainbow — a candlelight vigil, and the message of economic justice.

Political Action Chair Lenny Allen emceed the event, which featured State Sen. Kevin Parker of Brooklyn’s 21st District as guest speaker.

“Dr. King was the architect of the civil rights movement,” Sen. Parker said of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who would have turned 77 years old Jan. 15. Dr. King “sounded the message that no community should be left behind,” he said.

After the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, which led to the end of discrimination in public transportation, Dr. King pressed on for equal political and economic opportunities through nonviolent demonstrations in which he was arrested several times.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Sen. Parker said, quoting Dr. King’s letter from the Birmingham jail. And injustice can be overcome, he added, by using the power of the collective.

“It’s important to absorb the full content and poignancy of Dr. King’s now famous speech at the March on Washington in 1963,” he said.

The quarter-million civil rights supporters of all races and economic backgrounds marched to “cash a check” written by the Founding Fathers and demonstrate their belief that all Americans are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“Dr. King’s voice is amplified in his death,” said Sen. Parker. “The urgency is now. We can cash the check for freedom, security and justice by letting our collective voices be heard and speaking the language of action.”

— Diane S. Williams

The Pullman porters:
powerful engine of civil rights

For 100 years after the Civil War, thousands of luxury hotels on wheels crisscrossed the country. They were called Pullman cars after George Pullman, who founded and owned the railway sleeping car company, and the low-paid black porters whose work generated huge profits for Mr. Pullman were all called George.

The porters were carefully selected from the old South as a docile servant class, always at the beck and call of white passengers. Paradoxically, they led the way for African Americans in the 20th century labor and civil rights movements.

Though paid less than white co-workers, the porters were among the best paid black workers nationwide. Their visibility and mobility gave them status and sophistication. In the ’20s, with A. Philip Randolph as their union leader, they began to break out of their oppression. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters overcame fierce resistance and ultimately forced the Pullman Co. to the bargaining table.

Randolph and the porters were also in the forefront of the struggle to integrate the labor movement and American society, joining in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the 1963 March on Washington.

The Pullman cars disappeared in the mid-’60s but stories about the porters continue to fascinate audiences. There are probably more books and films about the sleeping car porters, their union and Randolph than about unions many times their size. Published last year, “Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class” by Larry Tye is the newest to tell their story.

— Ken Nash, DC 37 Ed Fund Library, Room 211