Long before interstates and airlines caused the decline of passenger train travel, before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights marches, porters on the railroads' Pullman sleeping cars were warriors for human dignity and champions of gracious hospitality across America.
That's the message volunteers at the B&O Railroad Museum wanted visitors to carry home yesterday from a program celebrating Black History Month. E. Donald Hughes II, a second-generation porter, proved a charismatic teacher for the dozens who listened.
Hughes, 43, recalled his all-night rides on Southern Railway's Southern Crescent from Washington to Atlanta and from New York to New Orleans, sitting on a hard wooden seat while awaiting a passenger's tug on the bell cord to summon him.
Hughes joined the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in the 1970s as his father did before him, mindful of the role his predecessors played in forming the first all-black union to be recognized by the American Federation of Labor in 1937. The union's slogan, "Fight or be Slaves," laid the foundation for the civil rights movement, he said.
Hughes and fellow B&O Museum living-history volunteers, Saundra Pomeroy and Stan Jordan, complemented "Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle," a movie shown in the museum's theater that recounted the 12-year struggle of union organizer A. Philip Randolph against Pullman Co.
Randolph was successful, and the union's demands for improved working conditions were met.
"Before the union, black porters had no guarantee they would be paid by the company and had to survive and raise families on the tips they earned for shining shoes, carrying luggage, caring for passengers' children and breaking down beds in the sleeping cars," said Hughes, proudly displaying a Pullman berth key.
His father, who began working as a porter in the 1940s, gave him the T-shaped tool used to unlock upper berths, breaking them down from their secured storage positions within sleeping car walls.
Hughes used his earnings to pay for his education, majoring in transportation management at the University of Maryland, College Park. He works in sales for a communications firm based in Howard County and recently joined the museum's volunteer staff working with Matthew White, director of education.
Hughes could not recall what salary he earned as a porter in the late 1970s but in "Miles of Smiles," pre-union porters were said to earn about $50 a month, not including tips, for 24-hour shifts, seven days a week.
He remembered that his father was often away from home for two and three weeks at a time, but never spoke of discrimination he endured on the job.
"My father taught me that you got respect by earning it," Hughes said.
Pub Date: 2/23/98
