My grandfather was a Pullman Porter beginning in the late 1930s. He spoke fondly of his time and considered A. Phillip Randolph, the civil rights activist and organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a hero.
A proud African American union member, his porter employment situated the Moores into the middle class. Granddaddy never told me — nor did I ask — about Black women who worked on Pullman cars. I assumed they didn’t exist.
