Filipino Pullman Porters

Event Date: May 15, 2024 5-7PM

The Chicago Federation of Labor celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month by remembering the Filipino Pullman Porters. Pullman Porters were almost exclusively Black. They suffered many indignities, endured harsh working conditions, and struggled with low pay. Despite that, they built the Black middleclass, lifted former Black slaves out of the poverty of the South, and were the foundation of the civil rights movement.

Nearly a century ago, the Pullman Company pit people of color against each other to keep Black workers down. When A. Philip Randolph began organizing the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, the company responded by hiring Filipino, Chinese, and Mexican immigrants as club car attendants and cooks. In Chicago and St. Louis, the company’s largest hubs, about 400 Filipinos worked as club car attendants. Instead of helping the company stop Randolph’s organizing drive, many of the Filipino Pullman Porters, realizing that they were being used as tools by the company, joined their Black co-workers in solidarity.

There’s a long history of companies pitting workers against each other to keep workers down and stop union organizing. Blacks and Filipinos rose above the racism that they both endured a century ago and fought to improve the lives of all workers.  

On May 15, 2024, at 6 p.m., we will celebrate that fight through the stories of a Filipino Pullman Porter Descendant. Tyrone Valdez is an officer at NALC Branch 11. His father, a Filipino immigrant, was a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Attendants. On this Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, will remember the fight to form the first Black Labor Union through the stories of a Descendant.

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Contact: Don V. Villar (dvillar@chicagolabor.org) for more details!

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