As the prominence of American railroads began to decline drastically in the post-war era, and the escalating civil-rights movement diversified workplace opportunities for African Americans, the ubiquity of the Pullman Porter also began to fall. In film, the ‘Pullman-Porter-as-black-archetype-for-white-audiences’ lost currency, and the figure of the Pullman Porter relocated to a very different branch of… Read more »
Tag: Pullman Porter
‘Nature, Family, Work, Spirituality’: The Home Movies of Ernest Beane
Ernest Beane was a Pullman porter who must have really, really loved making home movies; a collection of his films – housed at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland – is a wonderful and wide ranging testament to black middle class life in the 1930s and 40s. Last year’s Home Movie Day at… Read more »