How Black and Filipino Unity Was Forged in the Pullman Workers Union
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A pullman porter preparing beds
More than a hundred years ago, Filipinos were used as scabs against Black workers trying to form a union at the Pullman Company. Filipinos would eventually turn the tables on Pullman and join Black workers in forming the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). Through solidarity, they came together for a common cause.
In a meeting in 1925, A. Philip Randolph convened Black Pullman Porters around the country to launch the organizing drive of the BSCP. Chicago, being the headquarters of the Pullman Palace Car Company and the railroad hub of the country, was ground zero for much of that organizing. Black labor activists traveled the railroads around the country to spread the message of building a union. On every train and at every stop, they talked to individuals and groups of Pullman porters on joining the union.
Filipino workers on a train
Randolph faced a tough road in organizing the first Black labor union. He fought on multiple fronts. On one side, he went against one of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world. He also dealt with racism in government and industry that kept Blacks and people of color down. He also faced off with a segregated labor movement.
At the shop floor, the company used every tactic they could to stop the organizing drive. They started a company union which spied on the BSCP and spread misinformation. The company fueled the views of many Blacks at the time against labor unions. The company also pit people of color against each other. A few months after the organizing campaign began, Pullman hired about 400 Filipino club car attendants.
Filipino workers made their debut aboard Pullman private cars in the fall of 1925, only two months after the birth of the Brotherhood. Special trains, manned by Filipinos attired in white uniforms, carried crowds from Chicago to college football games at the University of Illinois. Announcing this innovation in its internal company magazine, Pullman noted the Filipinos’ experience in clubs. They “not only made a natty appearance but scored a decided hit.”
As expected, the hiring of Filipino “scabs” created tensions and fears at the workplace. While the Filipinos made up just a small number of the Pullman workforce, Pullman used their presence to thwart Randolph’s organizing campaign and scare away support for his fledgling union.
Why Filipinos? Early Filipino immigration to Chicago
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, most Asians were barred from immigrating to the United States. As a U.S. territory – the Philippines having been ceded by Spain following the Spanish American War – Filipinos were not subjected to the same immigration bans. Many Filipinos immigrated to the U.S. to work in the farm fields of Hawaii and up and down the mainland’s West Coast. Filipinos who settled in Chicago found work in clubs, hotels, restaurants, and private homes.
Many Americans’ view of Filipinos, during the early part of the century, had been shaped during the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. The United States exhibited more than 1,100 native Filipinos, Negritos, Igorot, Moros, and Visayans at the 47-acre Philippine Village at the fair. The exhibit, which ran for nine months, popularized racist and imperialistic views of the U.S. acquisition’s people as “little brown brothers,” primitive, and uncivilized savages.
The “little brown brothers,” Filipinos at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
At the Pullman Company, the Filipino attendants, like their Black coworkers, were trained in the high level of service that riders demanded. Many Filipinos quickly saw that they were being used as pawns by the company. Just as Blacks, they experienced racism and discrimination. Many saw that they had much more in common with their Black coworkers, which led them to join in solidarity with the BSCP.
One Filipino attendant who saw the injustice that was taking place and chose to stand up was Cipriano Samonte. He would lead the organizing drive of the Filipino workers at two of the largest Pullman hubs – Chicago and St. Louis. Cipriano would meet his fellow Filipinos on payday to talk union and educate them on the labor struggles that were taking place around them. He promoted solidarity with Black workers and fought to break the colonial mentality that many of them had – an attitude that hindered them from speaking out, standing up, and demanding dignity and respect. Cipriano broke through the cultural divide and preached common ground with Blacks in the struggle for a voice, respect, and rights at Pullman.
The Brotherhood’s policy towards Filipinos declared: “We wish it understood that the Brotherhood has nothing against Filipinos. They have been used against the unionization of Pullman porters just as Negroes have been used against the unionization of white workers… We will take in Filipinos as members… we want our Filipino brothers to understand that it is necessary for them to join the Brotherhood in order to help secure conditions and wages which they too will benefit from… The only security of the Filipinos as well as the Negro Pullman porter is organizing as one common union.”
Their hard work would pay off when the Brotherhood was finally recognized as the union representing workers at Pullman in 1935 and then won its first contract in 1937.
Who was Cipriano Samonte?
Cipriano Samonte’s fellow Filipino attendants described him as a rebel, activist, and regular guy. His activism was shaped by what he experienced and the injustice and inequality that he had seen. He was born on September 26, 1896 in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. His family, like many in Laoag, either fished or farmed.
That region of the Philippines had a history of resistance. During 400 years of Spanish colonial rule, the region spawned several uprisings against Spain. During the Spanish-American (Philippine-American) war of 1898, the province was the last to succumb to U.S. control and military occupation. Villagers waged a three-year resistance against the U.S. military.
In 1918, at the age of 22, Samonte was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army during World War I. Instead of seeing fighting, he and other Filipinos were sent to the sugar plantations of Hawaii, which was not yet a state of the U.S. He worked as a laborer for the Hawaiian Sugar Company (C&H) on the island of Kauai. He joined thousands of other Filipino laborers at the massive sugar plantations around the island.
Filipinos made up more than half of the plantation workforce on the islands – the others included native Hawaiians, Samoans, Chinese, and Japanese laborers. As the most recent labor immigrants to the islands, Filipinos faced lower wages and harsher conditions than other plantation workers. That unequal treatment set the need to organize.
In 1924, Filipino sugar plantation workers in Kauai led a strike demanding better pay that ended in violence. Local police and a quickly deputized posse broke the backs of the striking Filipino laborers in what has become known as the Hanapepe Massacre. During a confrontation, the police and deputies shot and killed 16 strikers and wounded dozens of others. When the military arrived, they arrested all the strikers and charged nearly 60 strikers with a variety of offenses. Many of the strikers would serve some prison time, and a number were sent back to the Philippines.
After two years of working on the Kauai sugar plantations, Samonte applied for a passport to travel to the United States. In his application for a passport, he wrote that he was traveling to the U.S. to study. Also in the application, he wrote he would return to the Philippines.
Because Filipinos were citizens of a U.S. territory, they were not subject to anti-Asian immigration laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act. They could freely immigrate to the U.S. For many Filipinos immigrating to Chicago, higher education was the goal. While some returned to the Philippines after graduation to become civil servants, many ended up staying in Chicago and raising a family. Because of racism, many could not find jobs in the chosen fields, for which that they had gone to college. Instead, they found work at the post office, hotels, restaurants, and other service jobs.
Samonte set sail for the U.S. in 1920, arriving in San Francisco and then making his way to Chicago. The bond with Blacks ran deep for Samonte and other Filipino Pullman club car attendants. They started interracial families. Samonte married Lela Williams, a Black woman. The couple had two daughters, Cresencia and Constancia Samonte. He became a widower on December 23, 1931. It’s not known exactly how Lela Williams Samonte died, but she was around 26 years old.
A few years after he lost his first wife, Samonte married Mary/Madeline Plott, also a Black woman. They lived with another Black-Filipino couple in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, calling a walkup at 5838 South Michigan home. When World War II broke out, Samonte was 43 years old. Like all men in the United States, he registered for the draft. He was not drafted into the army, but he and other Pullman Porters would serve the war effort in other ways. Pullman cars were used to transport troops as the country prepared for war.
“In 1938, the BSCP demonstrated that it would fight for all workers regardless of race, in a case involving club car attendant D. B. Pascual.”
Organizing Filipinos into the BSCP
At Pullman, Samonte played a vital role in bridging the gap between Filipino and Black workers. Many Filipinos believed that the Black leadership of the BSCP would not defend them as strongly or vigorously as they would Black workers. During the organizing campaign, A. Philip Randolph and leaders of BSCP worked to make sure that Filipinos felt welcome and part of the union. They invited Filipino attendants to attend union meetings and become more active in the organization. In talking with other Filipinos, Samonte worked to dispel the feelings of division between Blacks and Filipinos.
In response to the company’s efforts to create a separate Filipino Pullman attendant union, Randolph wrote: “There can be no such thing as a colored labor union or a Filipino labor union. All unions are workers’ unions, or should be… the Brotherhood put all of its forces behind a Filipino member to give him protection, just as it will put them behind a Negro member.”
In 1938, the BSCP demonstrated that it would fight for all workers regardless of race, in a case involving club car attendant D. B. Pascual. The Chicago Commissary District removed him from charge of a club car and assigned him to kitchen work because his supervisors claimed he could not speak and understand English fluently enough to serve passengers. The union fought on behalf of Pascual. Chicago Local President Milton P. Webster, Randolph’s second in command and a civil rights leader in his own right, presented the union’s case for Pasqual to the board. The Union prevailed after getting managers to testify that they did not have any issues in understanding or communicating with Pasqual.
The author with supporters of the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, Chicago
A year after the BSCP won its first contract and formal recognition by the American Federation of Labor, and 13 years after Pullman used Filipinos to hobble the organizing drive, solidarity between Blacks and Filipinos was sealed. Many Filipinos, especially those who had opposed unionization, had feared that they would be left out after the union organizing had ended. Instead, Filipinos would continue to work side-by-side Black Pullman Porters throughout the history of the union. The solidarity between Blacks and Filipinos was made possible thanks to the hard work of activists like Cipriano Samonte. They found a home in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Don Villar is a labor activist, an Emmy award-winning former broadcast news journalist, a civil rights attorney and an Asian American community leader. He is the current secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor— the third largest central labor council in the nation.
