The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters advocated for the rights of the people under caps, working-class people who challenged the authority of corporate elites and white railroad unions, which excluded blacks.
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A photograph of a group of Pullman porters is on display at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh as part of the exhibit "America's Best Weekly: A Century of the Pittsburgh Courier." The union was instrumental in developing a network to distribute the newspaper nationwide. The image caption says the paper was often destroyed or simply not delivered in the South.
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Two members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters carry luggage from a sleeping car in this 1946 photo.
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Three members of the union's Pennsylvania Railroad group. Joseph Trotter, professor and chairman of the history department at Carnegie-Mellon University, said riding the rails gave porters opportunities to become well-traveled and educated.
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Harold Hayes, a Pittsburgh television reporter, looks through a book filled with photographs of Pullman porters. Hayes' grandfather, Thomas Burrell, worked as a Pullman porter for 42 years.
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A Pullman porter uniform on display at the Heinz History Center.
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An unidentified porter under the Pullman cap of "No.62" carries bags at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in downtown Pittsburgh in 1944. Many of the photographs like these in the History Center exhibit were taken by Charles "Teeny" Harris.
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A. Philip Randolph, left, stands with the Rev. Charles Owen Rice outside the Civic Arena for a Sept. 4, 1967, Labor Day celebration honoring Randolph, who waged a 12-year battle to organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
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Pennsylvania Railroad Station porter Forrest Waters Sr., wearing badge No.15, holds a suitcase next to a man playing the trumpet. The photo was taken by Charles "Teenie" Harris some time between 1930 and 1950 at the downtown Pittsburgh station on Liberty Avenue.
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