Standing in the shadow of the grand industrial complex that was once a center of George Pullman’s railcar empire, a top union official from Chicago credited “a lefty radical” for changing the course of American history by organizing the company’s sleeping car attendants into the country’s first Black labor organization.
Speaking at a Labor Day event marking the anniversary of the opening of the Pullman National Monument and State Historic Site, Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter lauded A. Philip Randolph as a trailblazer who pulled together porters living far from Pullman’s company town, which was located on a swath of land that’s now part of the city’s Far South Side.
