How C. L. Dellums of Oakland organized the first union founded by black workers
By Dick Meister
(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for more than half a century.)
Affluent white train passengers snapping out orders. Broadly smiling black porters rushing to carry them out, fetching drinks, shining shoes, making beds, emptying cuspidors, rarely daring to protest.
That’s how it was aboard the Pullman sleeping coaches that were the height of luxurious travel for more than a quarter- century. Nothing better epitomized the huge distance between black and white in this society. And nothing better epitomized the struggle that has finally narrowed the
distance than the long life of C.L. Dellums, a porter who did dare to protest, and who continued to do so as a major labor and civil rights leader for six decades.