C L Dellums

Cottrell Laurence "C. L." Dellums was an organizer and leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). This was the first labor union led by blacks to join the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Beyond that he was involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Oakland Voters League, California's Fair Employment Practices Commission and other labor and civil-rights organizations.

Dellums was born in Corsicana, Texas two days after the turn of the 20th century. His father was born a slave but became a successful barber by the time C.L. was born. Dellums moved to West Oakland when he was twenty three years old, and planned on becoming a lawyer. Finding work became difficult and Dellums never went to college. Instead he was able to use his membership in the Freemasons to land him a job as a porter for the Pullman Company. Porters were the overnight attendants on passenger trains. Being a porter was a respectable job for a black man. However, long hours of unpaid overtime were required and racial discrimination was common. No matter how hard they worked they would never be promoted or placed into position reserved for white workers. Due to these unfavorable working conditions, New York socialist A. Philip Randolph began organizing the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

In Oakland, Dellums became the main organizer for the organization, and he was open about demanding the respect of his white bosses. If the boss refused to call him Mr. Dellums, he would call the boss by his first name. This infuriated the boss, and Dellums was the only black worker willing to do so. Remember, most of the porters were at most one generation away from slavery, they were not used to talking back to whites, let alone a white boss. Dellums had no issues talking back if he knew he was in the right.

After a few years the company had enough and fired Dellums and other organizers around the country. Though no longer working for the railroad, Dellums stayed busy organizing the BSCP, collecting dues, holding meetings and keeping spirits high. Soon the company began to fire other BSCP members. At one point there were not enough porters in Oakland to work all the trains, instead crews from other cities had to be used. Upper-class blacks were also used to put pressure on the porters. Black dentists and doctors would tell the porters and their wives that the men should stay away from Dellums and his organizing. Through it all most of the porters stayed with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Out of all the cities where the BSCP were being organized, Oakland always had the largest amount of members.

In 1928 the BSCP voted to strike. The expectation was that the National Mediation Board would step in a mediate between the railroad and the porters. The Railway Labor Act said that when a dispute between labor and railroads would be mediated by the government. After secretly meeting with the Pullman Company, the Board decided to stay out of the affair. When the National Mediation Board did not step in, the leadership realized they would have to go against the full weight of the Pullman Company and the strike would be broken. Rather than suffer defeat, the leadership called off the strike. Even though the strike was called off, the threat of one earned the porters the respect of many white labor union members. Black workers were often seen as obedient and unwilling to stand up to capitalists. This was especially true of those working service jobs, such as railroad porters. It was at this time that some of the BSCP locals were allowed to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor. Though the AFL did not recognize the BSCP as a whole, this did allow A. Philip Randolph to attend and give speeches at the AFL conventions. Along with the Great Depression, the aborted strike had a negative effect on membership in the the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The decline in membership reached a low of 658 dues paying members in 1933.

For years members of the AFL had been debating allowing black unions into the federation. Every year Randolph would give speeches at the AFL convention which would then be reprinted by newspapers around the world. At the same time, certain unions belonging to the AFL were very firm in their rejection of allowing non-white workers to join. This debating on the national level helped challenge discrimination not only for railroad workers, but in all kinds of industries. It put pressure on existing unions which did not allow people of color to join.

In 1934 congress passed a revision to the Railway Labor Act which specifically said that the National Mediation Board will step in during a dispute between porters and a railroad company. The BSCP became the official union to represent the porters. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the largest black-led union in the United States. The AFL finally got the BSCP a charter into the federation. After two years of negotiations, the BSCP and the Pullman Company signed a contract. This was the first black-led labor union to win a collective bargaining agreement.

The BSCP continued to work within the AFL to challenge racism within the labor movement and to act as training ground for black organizers who would often move on to civil-rights and other organizations. Over time the influence of the BSCP would decline as the railroad industry moved away from passenger travel and membership dropped off. In 1966 C.L. Dellums became the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

Though he stayed active in the BSCP, Dellums continued to work with and organize with many other organizations. He was the first black man elected to the Executive and Arbitration Committee for the Central Labor Council of Alameda County. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1924 and became president of the Alameda County branch. He worked locally against police brutality and nationally, helping organize boycotts of television shows which used racist blackface comedy. When, in 1944, NAACP branches from the 18 western states formed a regional committee, Dellums was elected chairman, and retained the position until stepping down in 1967.

Dellums believed in the strength of a union backed civil rights movement. He believed that the labor movement and civil rights movement has much in common and could continue to support one another.

One of his major accomplishments was to organize a statewide movement in California for a fair employment practices law. The organizing for this law took over a decade. It was largely made up of a coalition of labor unions and civil rights groups such as the NAACP and the Jewish Labor Committee. The organizing efforts of these groups led to a Democratic victory in the California legislature, and in 1959 the fair employment practices law passed. This state law forbade employers and labor unions from discriminating based on their color, national origin, ancestry, religion, or race.

A statewide commission was formed to hear cases of workplace discrimination. C.L. Dellums was appointed to the committee and served a number of terms.

C.L. Dellums was uncle to former Oakland mayor and congressman Ron Dellums.

C.L. Dellums died in Oakland in 1989. The Oakland Amtrak station is dedicated to him.