Pullman Porters

Rick Moss showed some of the items from the Pullman porters collection at the African American Museum and Library at Oakland. Pullman porters, many of whom were African American, were men hired to work on railroad sleeping cars. These jobs with the railroads afforded many African Americans a way out of the segregated South and brought many to cities in the northern and western U.S., such as Oakland, California.

C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles (LCVs) made a stop in their “2015 LCV Cities Tour” in Oakland, California, from October 31-November 5 to feature the history and literary life of the community. Working with the Comcast Cable local affiliate, they visited literary and historic sites where local historians, authors, and civic leaders were interviewed. The history segments air on American History TV (AHTV) on C-SPAN3 and the literary events/non-fiction author segments air on Book TV on C-SPAN2. close