From Publishers Weekly
What have the poet Claude McKay, the filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, the explorer Matthew Henson, the musician "Big Bill" Broonzy and college president Benjamin Mays in common? They all worked for the Pullman Company, which until 1969 owned the sleeper cars for and ran the sleeper service on the U.S. railroads, and was at one time "the largest employer of Negroes in America and probably the world." Blacks, preferably those with "jet-black skin," supplied "the social separation... vital for porters to safely interact with white passengers in such close quarters." Although Tye makes the general case for the centrality of "The Pullman Porter" in the making of the black middle class (and in much of American cultural life), the particular porter becomes supportive detail for a highly readable business history at one end and labor history at the other. Former BostonGlobe journalist Tye (The Father of Spin) interviewed as many surviving porters as he could find as well as their children, and immersed himself in autobiographies, oral histories, biographies, newspapers, company records—wherever the porter might be glimpsed, including fiction and film. Entertaining detail abounds: Bogart was a solid tipper; Seabiscuit traveled in a "specially modified eighty-foot car cushioned with the finest straw." So does informing detail: the long hours, the dire working conditions, the low pay, the lively idiom, the burdensome rules. While "The Pullman porter... was the only black man many [whites] ever saw," Tye shows what whites never saw—the grinding, often humiliating, realities of the job and the rippling effect of steady employment in the upward mobility of the porters' children and grandchildren. 40 b&w photos not seen by PW. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
In the 1933 film version of Eugene O'Neill's play "The Emperor Jones," Paul Robeson vividly portrayed the popular image of the black Pullman porter. At a church gathering, Robeson's porter, who looks striking in his new Pullman dress uniform, receives congratulations from friends and neighbors as, bustling with importance, he rushes to meet his train. The reality was more complicated. In segregated America before 1960, porters -- all of whom were black -- made beds for white passengers on the nation's sleeping cars, cleaned their clothes, shoes and spittoons as needed, and navigated a treacherous social climate where an unchecked response to the daily quota of racist attitudes could cost them their jobs, or worse. Little wonder that Malcolm X, who sold sandwiches on passenger trains in the 1940s, thought black porters and waiters were of necessity "both servants and psychologists." Still, the work was steady and commanded a salary above what most other blacks, North or South, would ever earn. This is the world that Larry Tye, a former reporter for the Boston Globe, explores in his new book. His interviews with a number of surviving porters (the Pullman Company ceased operations in 1968) provide a warm and, at times, intimate portrait of these men and their families as they struggled to balance financial rewards with the frequent assaults on dignity inherent in their work. In the process they built a union that defeated a major corporation and, from the beginning, supported civil rights efforts. These porters also created a unique communications system, carrying newspapers, magazines and word of political and cultural activities from one black community to another on their regular runs. Much of this story is not new -- Tye relies on works by William H. Harris and Jervis Anderson, among others -- but it remains a story well worth telling, and Tye presents it with stylistic grace.Imposed upon the narrative, however, is a narrowly constructed, misleading analysis. Tye claims that the Pullman porter, understood collectively, was "the most influential black man in America," more important than Booker T. Washington before his death in 1915 or even W.E.B. Du Bois across the six decades after 1900. He was the true instigator of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that sparked the civil rights movement, and one specific porter (E.D. Nixon) "tapped Martin Luther King Jr. to lead both." Tye argues that porters achieved this singular impact on American history because their work provided them with the "chance to enter the cherished middle class" and to pass that status onto succeeding generations. Tye offers only anecdotal evidence for this last claim but is certain of its validity because Pullman porters "believed in higher education . . . and embraced the gospel of economic mobility." These exaggerated claims allow Tye to present himself as a revisionist historian intent on restoring to porters their rightful place. In so doing, however, he unintentionally distorts that history by presenting porters apart from the intricate ties of church, social organizations and political struggles of black Americans in the pre-Montgomery years.Pullman porters did occupy a valued economic position within black America, largely because they made more money than nearly 80 percent of working people in their communities, many of whom earned salaries at or below the poverty level. Had the porters been an actual middle class, they might have been able to generate the entrepreneurial activities that proved so important in providing jobs among immigrants, for example. Segregation, of course, prevented all but a very small black middle class from emerging before 1960. How, then, did these working-class porters embrace those "middle class" values of continued education and eventual mobility? Had Tye explored the porters' roots in their local communities, he would have found that those values were never limited to the tiny middle class. Fraternal organizations embodied them, church groups sponsored literary and oratorical contests for youth, and a near-religious faith framed the hopes of many students and teachers as they toiled in their segregated schools. As important as the porters were in encouraging such efforts -- they, too, were active in church and fraternal organizations -- they were but part of a far broader movement that, between 1940 and 1980, resulted in a rise in black high school completion rates from 15 to almost 75 percent.Tye's more specific historical analysis is also questionable. He writes that E.D. Nixon, a porter for more than three decades, not only "tapped" King to lead the Montgomery boycott but that Nixon "had given birth" to the very notion of the boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks. For good measure, Tye also suggests that, had Nixon's work schedule not prevented him from attending a critical meeting, he would never have tapped King and instead would have become the boycott leader himself. This account is just wrong. Jo Ann Robinson and her Montgomery women's political committee first proposed the boycott; Nixon faced serious opposition when mentioned as a potential leader; and King was, as Tye does note, a compromise candidate -- at 26, too new to the city's ministerial power struggles to have yet made enemies.None of this in any way detracts from the role Nixon and other porters played in civil rights struggles. Rather, Tye's one-dimensional focus on the porters blinds him to more complex understandings and ultimately does a disservice (however unintended) to the porters and their communities. The courage and commitment of the Pullman porters to creating justice and equality before the modern civil rights movement did not develop in isolation, but rather through struggles deeply grounded in black community life. From that broader perspective, a more informative portrait would have emerged of both the porters and of their importance in our national political culture. Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Booklist
Although Tye focuses on Pullman porters and the formation of the black middle class, his analysis of class perceptions and race relations reverberates to the current day. Following Reconstruction, industrialist George Pullman took advantage of the limited opportunities available for freedmen, hiring and exploiting blacks--the darker the better--to serve as porters on his railroad. The porters suffered low wages, long hours, and weeks if not months away from home. In addition, they were expected to adopt a servile demeanor to provide comfort to the mostly white patrons of the Pullman sleeping cars. But the upside was employment, travel, and middle-class values and opportunities. Moreover, the fight for union recognition through A. Phillip Randolph's leadership was the basis for progress for blacks during the pre-civil rights era. The porters' labor dispute and efforts to include blacks in more favorable positions in the war industry led to the first march on Washington. Tye also explores the tension between the perception of Pullman porters as docile servants and their challenge to the status quo. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“This book brings to life the stirring story of the civil rights legacy of A. Phillip Randolph and the Pullman porters, which is an inspiration to those of us following in their footsteps. Kudos to Larry Tye for giving us this wonderfully readable, and incredibly important, history.”
--Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.

“Larry Tye has written a much-deserved love song to the forgotten men of the civil rights and labor movements – the Pullman Porters who defeated a major corporation, helped finance numerous civil rights battles, spread news and culture nation-wide, and set a high standard for dignity.” –Julian Bond, Chairman, NAACP Board of Directors

“This is one terrific book. It's a chapter of American history about which few of us know much, and it's a reminder of what life was like for African-Americans in this country, at least until the last few decades. But it's mostly about these men-- their courage, their tenacity and their hopes and dreams for their children and grandchildren. Many of them are no longer with us, but they should and would be rightly proud of how much their kids and grandkids have achieved and how much they have given to this country.” –Michael Dukakis, Former governor of Massachusetts, former vice-chair of Amtrak board

"This book does a magnificent job in relating how a relatively small group of struggling workers shaped not only the African-American community but all of the United States. The story of the Pullman porter is no less important than any other struggle for civil rights in the American labor movement." –James P. Hoffa, General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters

“Larry Tye's Rising from the Rails recreates an important chapter in the history of black people in this country: the hard earned passage of thousands of blacks into the middle class. By examining the progress of the Pullman porter - from the step and fetch it caricature to pensioned union member - Tye captures one of black people's many struggles to achieve equality. This is a story all Americans should know.” –Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director at Lazard LLC and author of Vernon Can Read!: A Memoir

"Rising from the Rails chronicles the pioneering role the Pullman porters and their leader, A. Philip Randolph, played in building America's union movement. This vividly told story should be required reading for those who care about labor history, race history, and US history." –John J. Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO



Book Description
An engaging social history that reveals the critical role Pullman porters played in the struggle for African American civil rights

When George Pullman began recruiting Southern blacks as porters in his luxurious new sleeping cars, the former slaves suffering under Jim Crow laws found his offer of a steady job and worldly experience irresistible. They quickly signed up to serve as maid, waiter, concierge, nanny, and occasionally doctor and undertaker to cars full of white passengers, making the Pullman Company the largest employer of African American men in the country by the 1920s.
In the world of the Pullman sleeping car, where whites and blacks lived in close proximity, porters developed a unique culture marked by idiosyncratic language, railroad lore, and shared experience. They called difficult passengers "Mister Charlie"; exchanged stories about Daddy Jim, the legendary first Pullman porter; and learned to distinguish generous tippers such as Humphrey Bogart from skinflints like Babe Ruth. At the same time, they played important social, political, and economic roles, carrying jazz and blues to outlying areas, forming America's first black trade union, and acting as forerunners of the modern black middle class by virtue of their social position and income.
Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter, and provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon.



About the Author
Larry Tye was a longtime journalist for the The Boston Globe, winning numerous awards for his work. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, he is the author of The Father of Spin (0-8050-6789-2) and Home Lands (0-8050-6591-1). He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

FROM OUR EDITORS

"Behind almost every successful African American, there is a Pullman porter." Author Larry Tye's provocative assertion is central to the thesis of this engaging book. With a sharp eye for personal detail, Boston Globe journalist Tye has immersed himself in the history of the Pullman Company, the railroad firm that was at one time "the largest employer of Negroes in America and probably the world." With stories culled from a variety of sources, Rising from the Rails shows how tens of thousands of hardworking black porters achieved middle-class status for themselves and their families despite the rampant racism of the period.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From the 1860s, when George Pullman first hired African-Americans to work on his luxury sleeping cars, until the mid-twentieth century, when the Pullman Company ended its sleeper service, the Pullman porter held one of the best jobs in the black community and one of the worst on the train. He was maid and valet, nanny and doctor, concierge and occasional undertaker to cars full of white passengers. His very presence embodied the romance of the railroad. But behind the porter's ever-present smile lay a day-by-day struggle for dignity on the long trips that separated him from his family while exposing him to the more privileged culture of well-heeled riders. Rising from the Rails depicts the paradox of life as a Pullman porter and writes a missing chapter of American history.

Larry Tye vividly re-creates the singular setting of a Pullman sleeping car, a capsule of space and time where all the rules of racial engagement came into focus and many were suspended -- so long as the train was moving. The dichotomy of the porter's working life -- duties not far removed from slavery, opportunities not available to other black workers in Jim Crow America -- made him both a representative of his time and a trailblazer. The period of the porter's employment by the Pullman Company coincides almost exactly with the struggle of newly freed slaves for the full legal freedoms finally achieved in the 1960s, and his largely unrecognized role in this struggle was critical. As the patriarch of black labor unions and the civil rights movement, he was among the first African-Americans to effectively claim a right to respect. He was also the father and grandfather of the African-Americans who today run cities and states, sit on corporate and editorial boards, and number among this country's leading professors, scientists, and clergy

Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of African-American railroad workers and their descendants, Rising from the Rails tells the quintessentially American story of how a minority finds a foothold in the workplace and the nation's psyche.

FROM THE CRITICS

Nick Salvatore - The Washington Post

[Tye's] interviews with a number of surviving porters (the Pullman Company ceased operations in 1968) provide a warm and, at times, intimate portrait of these men and their families as they struggled to balance financial rewards with the frequent assaults on dignity inherent in their work. In the process they built a union that defeated a major corporation and, from the beginning, supported civil rights efforts … Much of this story is not new -- Tye relies on works by William H. Harris and Jervis Anderson, among others -- but it remains a story well worth telling, and Tye presents it with stylistic grace.

A'Lelia Bundles - The New York Times

… at a time when even college-educated black men might wind up doing menial labor, the porter's job provided the kind of vicarious exposure and connection to powerful people that Larry Tye contends ''helped shape today's black middle class and intelligentsia.'' In Rising From the Rails, Tye makes the even bolder claim that ''behind almost every successful African-American, there is a Pullman porter.'' It is a provocative assertion, one that Tye earnestly sets about to prove.

Publishers Weekly

What have the poet Claude McKay, the filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, the explorer Matthew Henson, the musician "Big Bill" Broonzy and college president Benjamin Mays in common? They all worked for the Pullman Company, which until 1969 owned the sleeper cars for and ran the sleeper service on the U.S. railroads, and was at one time "the largest employer of Negroes in America and probably the world." Blacks, preferably those with "jet-black skin," supplied "the social separation... vital for porters to safely interact with white passengers in such close quarters." Although Tye makes the general case for the centrality of "The Pullman Porter" in the making of the black middle class (and in much of American cultural life), the particular porter becomes supportive detail for a highly readable business history at one end and labor history at the other. Former Boston Globe journalist Tye (The Father of Spin) interviewed as many surviving porters as he could find as well as their children, and immersed himself in autobiographies, oral histories, biographies, newspapers, company records-wherever the porter might be glimpsed, including fiction and film. Entertaining detail abounds: Bogart was a solid tipper; Seabiscuit traveled in a "specially modified eighty-foot car cushioned with the finest straw." So does informing detail: the long hours, the dire working conditions, the low pay, the lively idiom, the burdensome rules. While "The Pullman porter... was the only black man many [whites] ever saw," Tye shows what whites never saw-the grinding, often humiliating, realities of the job and the rippling effect of steady employment in the upward mobility of the porters' children and grandchildren. 40 b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Jill Kneerim of Kneerim & Williams. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Tye (Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora) takes us on a long ride on the rails as he follows the lives, experiences, and aspirations of black Pullman porters from their early days working Pullman sleeping cars in the aftermath of slavery, through the Jim Crow era, to the rise of civil rights and the decline of rail travel after World War II. Tye notes that the Pullman company fixed on blacks as the perfect "servants" in catering to rail riders' fantasies of opulence. But these jobs also meant access to information and insight into white privilege, which the porters parlayed into social status and social activism. By becoming organized through the trade unionism of A. Philip Randolph, the porters showed what collective black action could do-an experience that propelled them into civil rights. Tye relies on interviews with porters and their descendants to get the inside stories of life on the railroad and to gauge the resultant rise in wealth and personal pride. Sometimes romantic and always fast-paced, Tye's work is worth the ride for its comprehensive survey of a topic that deserves much attention. Recommended for academic and major public libraries.-Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews