“10,000 Black Men Named George”
What we can learn from A. Philip Randolph and the fight to organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Scrolling through my Facebook feed for Twin City friends’ photos of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, I saw a set from an early protest where George Floyd’s name was the center of striking murals and sidewalk chalk art. George Floyd’s name will live forever even though it was his life that was snuffed out by a police officer sick with the ever-evolving pathological virus of systemic racism and power.
George Floyd. George Floyd. George Floyd. My mind raced through the 30+ years of political, labor and social activism stored in my brain’s hard drive. George. George. George. The name has terrible poetry to it. In the nanoseconds it takes for synapses to fire, a powerful yet incomplete phrase came to mind “10,000 Georges.”
“Wasn’t there a movie about the organizing of sleeping car porters with 10,000 Georges in the title?” I thought.
Knowing a few things about labor history, I remembered the African American civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph led the organizing of this all-Black male workforce back in the 1920 and 30s. The Pullman company produced, owned and operated these luxurious railroad “hotels on wheels,” and employed…
