Pullman Porters: From Servitude to Civil Rights

In 1863, when Chicago industrialist George Pullman began making his famous Pullman Cars for luxury rail travel, he needed highly trained porters who were skilled in service and willing to work for low wages. So he headed south, and found his porters among the legions of recently freed slaves. Soon, The Pullman Rail Car Company was the largest employer of blacks in the country, with the greatest concentration of Pullman porters living in Chicago. But soon, the porters were questioning their situation, and began to take on the enormously powerful company. Long before anyone was talking about rights for the black worker, the Pullman porters began a struggle that would be a forerunner of the civil rights movement. It is the story of the first attempt by black laborers to form a union and fight for workers rights and job security. A Network Chicago Production.