All Aboard!

In the 1880s, transcontinental trains reached Portland for the first time. With the trains came Black railroad workers and their families. The number of Black Americans in Oregon grew tremendously over the next several decades.

This exhibit describes the work lives of Portland’s Black porters, waiters, hotel workers and businesses owners, and the small but thriving community they created.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, formerly enslaved people saw their economic position elevated by new work opportunities. Railroad labor was a growing industry where Black Americans could find employment. The work was hard but consistent, and offered better wages than most jobs open to Black people. Railroad positions also provided another unique opportunity to Black Americans –a chance to get out of the South.

Railroad work afforded Black men (and some women) the chance to travel across the United States. Along with their wages, railroad workers sent home stories of the emerging cities along the rail line. Many decided to start new lives with their families in these rail hub cities, helping to form the Black communities in Omaha, Chicago, and Minneapolis. The relocation of Black railroad workers and their families were an early part of "The Great Migration", a mass migration of millions of Black Americans out of the south during the 20th century.

In 1880, a small number of Black railroad and hotel workers started to settle in Portland. Their families followed soon after. Businesses and churches quickly emerged to cater to the city's new Black population. Out of nowhere, Portland's Black community was born.

One of the first obstacles Black railroad workers faced in Portland was finding a place to stay. The Pullman Car Company hired Black porters for their sleeping cars, but those porters were not allowed to sleep in the cars themselves.

Hotels offered no alternatives. Most hotels would not offer rooms to Black railroad workers, even if they were operated by the same railroad company. Northern Pacific recruited Filipinos and Black workers from the South to work as waiters and housekeepers at its hotel, the Portland Hotel. But rooms at the hotel were only available to white patrons.

Black newcomers to Portland found overnight accommodations in poor rooming houses and inns around Union Station. In 1906, W. D. Allen opened the Golden West Hotel specifically to fill the gap of Black lodging. It was the first Black-owned hotel in Oregon. Its ground level was occupied by Black barbershops, saloons, and music venues, making the Golden West Hotel the heart of Portland's new Black community.

Cities in the North and West offered the promise of less race-based violence and discrimination. While Oregon was distant from the Jim Crow South, racial discrimination in Oregon was common and legal in the late 19th century. Black Americans could not even come to the state before 1866, and the Oregon Constitution still had outdated exclusions on Black residency, voting, and marriage equality.

With the influx of African Americans to Portland, discriminatory practices increased and became more visible. Business owners could legally discriminate based on race. Black patrons were excluded from most social clubs, public parks, and public swimming pools. Black Portlanders also understood that public invitations to enjoy new city entertainment venues did not apply to them. Discrimination affected job and housing opportunities as well.

From 1920-1923, the Ku Klux Klan had tremendous influence in Oregon. In 1923, the Klan had 35,000 registered members in Oregon. This meant Oregon had the highest Klan membership per capita of any state in the country, at one out of every 20 people.

The Klan targeted Black, Jewish, and Mexican Americans as well as Catholics. Like Klan members in the South, Oregon Klan members adopted hooded uniforms and group hierarchy. They used cross-burnings, violence, and intimidation to create an atmosphere of terror. They also attained political power. The Klan influenced elections and legislation, even helping to elect Governor Walter Pierce in 1922.

America’s effort to link both coasts by rail offered Black Americans a number of potential positions. Many accepted the low-paying, physically-demanding work of laying track. Others found jobs as baggage handlers and laborers at train stations. The most respected and best-paying positions available to Black workers were the sharply-dressed porters and waiters who attended to passengers aboard the train.

One of the earliest jobs for Black Americans on the railroad was as a “gandy dancer.” In race-segregated crews, gandy dancers laid track beds, positioned cross ties, aligned rails, and drove steel spikes to secure the track.

Called “dancers”, crews took two steps forward and one step back to move the assembled track. Callers told the crew how to move in a rhythmic fashion. Backbreaking work, a 55-foot section of rail weighed 2,295 pounds. Gandy dancers earned $5.00 per 10-hour day.

Here are some common phrases shared by railroad employees, and their meanings:

Black railroad laborers held positions in virtually every part of the train. Explore some of these positions below.

In the 1920s, Chicago's Pullman Car Company was the largest private employer of Black labor in America. Pullman porters worked for the company, not the railroad, aboard special Pullman cars. Porters averaged over 70 hours of work per week, and had to pay for their own food, uniforms, and lodging. As an added insult, passengers were encouraged to refer to all Pullman porters as "George", after company founder George Pullman. Porters relied heavily on the tips from passengers because of low wages. Pullman porters had to be exceptionally charming just to make a living.

In the 1920s, porters employed by the Pullman Company sought to unionize to address their low wages and poor working conditions. The Pullman Company worked equally as hard to stop their organizing efforts, harassing workers and threatening to fire them. However, the Pullman porters succeeded and, in 1925, established the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) with A. Phillip Randolph as president. Their slogan was “Fight or Be Slaves.” In 1935, the BSCP became the first Black-led union to be granted a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

At the same time, Black Portlanders were becoming politically active in the community. The first Black-led political groups were founded as early as the 1870s. The Summer Union Group, the Bed Rock Political Club, and others helped to organize voting coalitions and advocate for civil rights. New groups founded in the early 1900s worked on a variety of causes, including woman suffrage, the repeal of anti-Black laws, and campaigns against the racist film Birth of a Nation.

Black business owners and social leaders worked together to form a number of enterprises. In 1903, a group of local leaders founded Portland's first Black-owned newspaper, The Advocate. Many of these same community members formed the Portland Chapter of the NAACP in 1909; the Portland Chapter is the oldest continuous chapter of the NAACP in the West.

The stability from railroad work afforded some Black Americans to establish their own businesses. In the 1890s-1930s, Portland had a number of Black-owned medical and legal practices, haberdasheries, barbershops, cigar stores, sweets shops, music venues, and more. These diverse businesses were unique employment opportunities for Black Portlanders at the time.

As Portland's Black business community accrued capital, a middle class emerged. The early 1900s became a time of progress and prosperity for Black Portlanders. While discriminatory laws were still pervasive, growing numbers of Black Americans began to purchase property. Sometimes white allies aided Black Portlanders in buying homes in the city.

By the 1920s, Portland's Black population had become a more visible part of the city's cultural landscape. Many anchor institutions were established during this time which still serve Black Portlanders today.

The Black community established churches that became central to the lives of many families. Churches became places to socialize and organize for civil rights. Churches joined the Portland NAACP, Urban League, and other organizations in a fight for fair employment, housing, and education opportunities.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the railroads in creating Portland's modern Black community. In 1880, Portland's Black population was just 192 people; by 1910, it had grown to 1045 –an increase of 444%. These new Oregonians worked together to build vital community institutions and businesses, and create opportunities for future generations.

The railroads offered stability to Black Portlanders in the face of Ku Klux Klan oppression, racist zoning, and the Great Depression. As late as 1941, a staggering 98% of the city's Black workers were employed in some capacity by the railroad companies. But by the end of that year, a World War would transform the nation, and remake Portland's Black community.