Melinda Chateauvert
Â Â Â Â Â  The Brotherhood of Sleeping, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Car Porters was the first national trade union for African Americans., Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Standard BSCP histories focus on the men who built the union; few acknowledge, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  the important role of the Ladies' Auxiliary in shaping public debates, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  over black manhood and unionization, setting political agendas for the, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  black community, and crafting effective strategies to win racial and economic, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  justice., Â Â Â Â Â  The Ladies' Auxiliary, made, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  up of the wives, daughters, and sisters of Pullman porters, used the Brotherhood, Â Â Â Â  Â Â Â to claim respectability and citizenship. Pullman maids, relegated to the, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  auxiliary, found their problems as working women neglected in favor of, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  the rhetoric of racial solidarity. The auxiliary actively educated other, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  women and children about the labor movement, staged consumer protests,, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  and organized local and national civil rights campaigns ranging from the, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  1941 March on Washington to school integration to the Montgomery Bus Boycott., Â Â Â Â Â  ,A volume in the series ,Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Women in American History, edited by Anne Firor Scott, Nancy A. Hewitt, ,Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  and Stephanie Shaw, and in the series The Working Class in American History, ,Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  edited by David Brody, Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, and Sean ,Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Wilentz, Â 
Labor,History,Race
Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters