Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More
A light-skin Black man with a mustache stares into the camera. He is wearing all black and a hat that says "Pullman Porter."
A sleeping car porter working for the Pullman Company at Chicago's Union Station. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters founded.

1925

LAB
BH
RES
A sleeping car porter working for the Pullman Company at Chicago's Union Station. (Photo: Library of Congress)

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) is a labor organization led by African-American men, comprised of a group of employees of the Pullman Company. The porters organize for better working conditions, and will win eventual victories against employer George Pullman–the American engineer who designed the sleeping car. BSCP will become the first Black-led organization to be admitted into the American Federation of Labor.