It is a remarkable, but largely unremarked history: the Pullman Porters of America's legendary passenger rail past. A short article in the AARP Bulletin's November/December issue connects to a longer site online and a five minute film by Seattlite Thomas H. Gray on one of the most significant chapters in the rise of the black middle class and the success of the civil rights movement. There is ambivalence in this story. On one hand, a segregated, servant class job. On the other, the dignity of upwardly mobile opportunity in the pre-civil rights era.
Fine men were engaged in this hard work. In all cases, the story is surrounded by the haunting call of the train whistle, leading on, moving ahead.
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