Rising from the Rails Quotes

“Along with their special blue blankets porters got blue pillows, just to make sure a conductor never had to rest his white head on a pillow used by a black porter. Fare receipts were color-coded, too, with a P on those handed out by porters. And Pullman offices in Miami and other districts maintained two sign-in windows: an indoor one for conductors while the porters’ was out in the elements.52d That obsession with keeping things separate was even more apparent in the early days of the dining cars. A curtain was drawn around porters while they ate, creating a small coloreds-only space like the one used for the rare Negro passenger.e And the Pullman Company preferred light-skinned Negroes on its dining cars, in contrast to its dark-skinned porters. A hiring directive on porters clearly stated, “Do not employ a light complexioned man”; it did not explain why.53 Hiring light-skinned waiters probably was a throwback to slave days, when softer-toned Negroes got favored jobs in the Big House, while the directive on porters seemed aimed at accentuating the wall of demarcation between served and servant.”
― Larry Tye, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class

“Pullman porters embrace all that. They are men whose compelling biographies tell bigger stories of racial dynamics, democracy, and the building of African-America. Not only are they a singular tale of history; they are one that is living and breathing today. Behind almost every successful African-American, there is a Pullman porter.”
― Larry Tye, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class