817 Q Street, NW: The International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

           

In the 1920s, a group of disgruntled Pullman porters in New York City asked an African-American labor militant, A. Philip Randolph, left, a strong advocate of the rights of black working men and women, to form an independent union of sleeping car porters and maids.  Officially founded in 1925, the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (IBSCP) was the first successful black trade union in the United States.  Its local chapter office was operated out of 817 Q Street, NW, (left) from 1943 to 1978. 1.     

            The porters worked for the Pullman Company, whose founder, George Pullman, invented the overnight sleeping train car in the 1880s in Chicago.  Pullman hired black men and women to serve as porters, attendants, and maids to the mostly white passengers who used the first class train accommodations.  By using blacks in a service capacity, he was drawing upon the master-servant relationship of slavery days when blacks were servants to white masters.       

Porters, such as these seen here in 1943, worked long hours for little pay and no job security, and they had to spend half their wages on food, lodging, and uniforms.  The black community, however, considered porters an elite class of workers because they had steady jobs and traveled around the country.  But porters worked long hours with little salary, lacked job security, and had to pay for their food, lodging, and uniforms.  Much of their income came from tips.  In 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP).  He ran into fierce opposition in Chicago, where the Pullman Company's headquarters was located and where many porters lived.  Pullman fought the union, denouncing Randolph as a communist and recruited support from the middle-class black leaders of the city. 2

 Born in Crescent City, Florida, the son of a Methodist minister, Randolph (left) moved to Harlem in New York City in 1911 to become an actor.  He attended City College at night, and in 1912 founded an employment agency with Chandler Owen that tried to organize black workers.  After the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, the two men started a magazine, THE MESSENGER, that called for more jobs in the war industry and the armed forces for blacks.

        After the war, Randolph lectured at New York's Rand School of Social Science and ran unsuccessfully for office on the Socialist Party ticket.  The BSCP porters, facing fierce opposition not only from the Pullman Company, but also from middle-class blacks in Chicago, who did not want to antagonize the company.  Randolph and the BSCP struggled with the black community as well as the Pullman Company for 12 years.  He also struggled for recognition by the American Federation of Labor, the largest trade union organization in America, as the A.F.L. was hostile to black workers in the trade union movement.  A. Philip Randolph was a trade unionist and one of the major civil rights leaders in America.

         Held in the Smithsonian collection today is the sign for the BSCP that once hung for decades in the window of 817 Q Street, seen at right.

Many blacks considered labor unions "trouble-makers" that worked against the best interests of black workers. Randolph made a conscientious effort to win the support of the middle-class black community because of its great influence in the black press and with public opinion. The company refused to negotiate with the union; some charged this was because the union was black. The Brotherhood was the verge of collapsing when Congress passed federal laws guaranteeing the right of all legitimate unions to organize workers without interference from their employers, giving the union a new life. The BSCP now found itself with some legal muscle. In addition, the major labor organization in the United States, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which had traditionally excluded blacks from its membership-now gave the Brotherhood support. As a result, in 1937, the Pullman Company finally signed a labor agreement with the Brotherhood.

            A. Philip Randolph, along with Bayard Rustin, was a central figure in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, much of which was planned at 817 Q Street.  

             The photo above is attributed to the New York Times, published on April 20, 1968, two days after the riots erupted in Washington, DC and other cities following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The house at 817 Q Street can be seen at the top center, with the turret.        

            Several members of the BSCP came and went on and off the deed over the course of the next decade, until the house was eventually owned by Oscar W. and Thomasina Shelton, who had purchased it from William Anderson on February 25, 1955.  They continued to rent it to the BSCP until 1978.  

Copyright Paul K. Williams

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[1] In 1938, the female relatives of union members formed the International Ladies’ Auxiliary. 

[2] Excerpted from PBS Special on BSCP by Richard Wormser. 

Lincoln Temple Church at 11th and R NW - and the mission church onsite before that

The Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ, built beginning in 1928 on the northeast corner of 11^th and R Streets, NW is an unusual example of Italian Romanesque Revival architecture.  It was designed by Howard W. Cutler, and replaced a mission that had been built in the site in 1868. It is regarded as the oldest African- American Congregational Church in Washington, DC. The opening ceremony in 1928 is is illustrated below. 

Lincoln Temple evolved from religious organizations founded at Civil War camps close by, including Camp Barker at 13^th and R Streets, the founding of a Sabbath school in 1863 at the Wisewell Barracks at 7^th and P Streets, and establishment of the Lincoln Mission as a school and community center at the corner of Ninth and R Streets, NW. Following the War, thousands of freemen stayed in what was then the edge of the city, benefiting from food, clothing, and religious education, provided by a number of benevolent organizations and church groups. 

In 1868, the Colfax Industrial Mission seen here was built at the corner of 11th and R Streets by the American Missionary Association "for the education of the colored children of Washington."  It was formally dedicated in 1870 and celebrated its first Sunday service the leadership of Rev. G. N. Marden.

The Colefax mission was renamed the Lincoln Industrial Mission in 1870, in memoriam to fallen President Abraham Lincoln.  Ten years later, in 1880, ten black members of the First Congregational join with mission and chartered the Lincoln Memorial Congregational Church.  Rev. Simon Peter Smith served as its pastor.  Later in 1901, it merged with the Park Temple Congregational Church, with Rev. Sterling Brown (father of poet Sterling Brown 1901-1989), Pastor of Park Temple, serving as its pastor. 

Born in Tennessee, Rev. Brown was educated at Fisk University and the Oberlin Theological Seminary.  At Lincoln Temple, Brown introduced a business school and an employment agency, and made the building a central meeting place for such organizations as the Bethel Literary and Historical Society and the Samuel Coleridge – Taylor Choral Society.  Dr. Brown taught in the Howard University Theological Department from 1892 until 1914, and in 1924, wrote a biography named My Life Story. 

In November of 1903, the congregation was one of several churches in Washington to host the national Conference on the Race Problem in the United States, which resulted in the schlolarly proceedings titled How to Solve the Race Problem.

The congregation obtained a permit to build the current structure at 11^th and R Street on June 9, 1928, with construction overseen by Rev. Robert Brooks. It was designed by architect Howard Wright Cutler (1883-1948), who was born on February 19, 1883 in Ouray, Colorado to geologist Martin Van Buren and Margaret (Jocknick) Cutler.  He was educated at the local schools, and obtained a B.A. in architecture from the Athenaeum and Mechanics Art Institute in Rochester, New York in 1904.  He began his architectural career at the local firm coined Gordon and Maden.

He began his own architectural firm in 1906, designing building for the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY.  In World War One, he was assigned to the Designing and Architectural Department, and rose to the rank of Major.  He designed hospitals across the country, including an addition to the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC.  Following the War, Cutler formed a firm in Washington, DC with the name of Cutler and Woodbridge with engineer Samuel Woodbridge from 1919-1921, and then Cutler and Moss with architect Louis R. Moss, which lasted until 1923.  He practiced on his own after that time, and resided in Silver Spring, Maryland.              

Cutler designed more than 25 schools in Montgomery County, Maryland.  Two years prior to his work on Lincoln Temple, in 1926 he designed the Spanish-Mission Revival Eldebrooke Church at 4100 River Road in Tenleytown. 

  

Perhaps its most notable congregant was Mary Church Terrell (left), who in 1952 led lead lunch counter sit-ins in downtown Washington.  In 1963, the Lincoln Temple served food to participants in the March on Washington, and six years later, its auditorium served as the venue for a concert by musician and vocalist Roberta Flack. 
 

Lincoln Temple members have always been proud of their history, and in 1994, they led the effort to list the building in the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 1994; it was  listed in the National Register of Historic Places a year later. 

Copyright Paul K. Williams

DC's First African-American Fire Station at 931 R Street

The District of Columbia Fire Department was officially organized on September 23, 1871, although several neighborhoods had volunteer and paid crews prior to that date.  These began with a fund raiser held in 1789 to purchase a hand pumping engine and buckets for the Georgetown community.  Fire Station No. 4 at 931 R Street, NW was built between 1884 and 1885, and later became notable as an all-black engine company. 

The first firefighter in the District to lose his life in the line of duty occurred on May 6, 1856, when Benjamin Grenup, a member of the Columbia Engine Company, fell from a vehicle on the way to fighting a fire at the Shreeves’ Stables on capitol Hill.  His grave in Glenwood Cemetery is marked with life sized fire hydrants carved in stone at each corner of his plot. 

Regulations for the department were first introduced in September of 1856, and a short time later, Mott style fire call boxes were placed in strategic locations throughout the city, recognized by their harp shaped cast iron poles and gas lights.  Citizens would pull a trigger at these locations to send a telegram like alarm to a central station, which noted a fire in progress near that particular pole.  The call boxes cost an estimated $200 each to purchase, install, and wire.  The Gamewell Company later expanded the system to include more than 1,500 such call boxes in the city, expanded to include police call boxes using a similar system.  We did a blog post just on the callboxes themselves HERE.    

Records kept by the Fire Department were meticulous, as reported on a yearly basis in the Report of Commissioners of the District of Columbia.  In 1880, for example, salaries totaled $71,840, and the Department had 15,600 feet of hose in good condition, 3,700 feet in fair condition, and 3,400 feed in bad condition.  They had a total of 38 horses, of which 32 were in active condition.  Each firehouse had an inventory of all items on the premises, down to the number of pliers and combs.  Gas jets, chimneys, and gas stoves seem to have caused most of the fires reported in 1880.            

Fire Station No. 4 at 931 R Street became the first all-black fire fighting company in Washington on April 3, 1919.  Prior to the forming of this company, the fire department had been racially integrated, but it was difficult for blacks to pass arbitrary and impromptu physicals and exams sprung by white leaders effectively preventing them from advancing ranks within the Department.  The request for the all-black company was instituted by one of the four black firefighters working for the city at the time who apparently believed that his only opportunity for advancement was within an all-black unit.

 

 In January of 1943, Gordon Parks photographed the fire company at Station No. 4, recording their daily activities and routines, seen here.  He included pictures of Lt. Mills and Captain J.B. Keyes, and other crew members.  Parks followed them to calls and fires, including one in front of the Mid-City Theater in the 1200 block of 7^th Street, built in 1913. 

The Department was integrated again in the early 1960s, but advancement for blacks remained difficult, often conflicting with a multiple generation immigrant population.  Following the 1968 riots, however, an aggressive recruiting campaign resulted in a more racially balanced department.  Washington, DC had its first black fire chief appointed in 1973.   Fire Station No. 4 was later changed to Fire Station No. 7, but is today a private artist studio and residence.  As reported by Urban Turf, it can be yours for just $2.65 million.  See the listing HERE.  

Copyright Paul K. Williams

Latest and Greatest of our "Then & Now" Series

The latest three "Then & Now" Features we post on the Prince of Petworth Blog for you reading pleasure!

The GUOOF Odd Fellows Hall at 9th and T Streets, NW













The Sawyer mansion at 20th and Conn Ave, home of LaTomate Restaurant today

The Walker House at Constitution and 5th Street, NE

Old Central High School in Shaw & Kennedy Playground

Old Central High School, 7th and O Streets, NW

The site of the Kennedy Recreation Center, which opened in 2003 along 7^th Street between O and P Street in Shaw, has a long and rich history with myriad uses in its past that have been uncovered that range from orchard farming to rowhouses, open markets, schools and recreational facilities.  The block was also home to the Central High School from 1882 to 1916.    

A man by the name of John Saul first rented the entire Square from owner W. W. Corcoran beginning in late 1852 for use as a planting nursery.  His plantings included a variety of apple, cherry, plum, and peach trees, in addition to several rows of grapes. He also grew large evergreens, Norway spruces, Japanese and Chinese arborvitae, and Japanese maples and shrubs for his growing landscaping business. 

Following the destruction of the Northern Liberties Market in 1872 (located where the Carnegie Library now stands), the site operated as a temporary market space for those farmers and merchants awaiting the construction of the O Street Market, which opened in 1881.  The 6^th Street side of the Square had begun to be built upon for residential purposes as early as the 1870s. 

The Henry School was apparently the first building on the square, built before 1878, joined a short time later by the Polk School.  A Congressional appropriation in 1881 of $80,000 made possible the Central High School building that opened for classes the following year.  Interestingly, the funds had been gleaned from various lotteries authorized by Congress between the years 1812 and 1880. 

The first commencement exercises took place in the building on June 12, 1883.  Architect Appleton P. Clark, who eventually design many houses in the immediate area, was part of the graduating class that year.  A north wing was added in 1890 that substantially enlarged the facility. 

The first Principal of Central was Professor Paul, who met with a tragic and unexpected death shortly after he left his home at 2410 14^th Street on March 31, 1888.  The Evening Star reported that he had been returning home riding his bike down the 14^th Street hill when “he was thrown to the ground by one of Senator Cullum’s horses, ridden by a servant named James M. Chase…the man rode right over Mr. Paul, man and bicycle going over in one heap.  The man rode down the hill at full speed.  He did not appear to be attempting to check his horse, but was rather urging the animal on.”  Paul died a few days later from a broken back.      

J. Edgar Hoover was perhaps its most infamous graduate, a member of the class of 1913 (right).  Dr. Alfred Sze Sao-Ke had graduated in 1897, and later became the Ambassador from China to the U.S.; his parents had been diplomats in Washington, which is why he ended up alum of Central.  Other distinguished graduates went on to become Military Generals, CEO’s, Professors, Bank Presidents, and a large and literal “Who’s Who” of Washington society for decades.           

An alumni group of old Central published a brief history of the school entitled “Here’s to Old Central” in 1967 written by Bessie Whitford, a 1902 graduate (who returned to teach at the new location from 1918 to 1950).  At its O Street location until 1916, and at its Clifton location until 1950, the school graduated about 47,000 students       

In 1916, students from old Central moved to the new Central High School Building at 13^th and Clifton Streets, where it remained until 1950, when it was renamed Cardozo High School as part of the segregated black school system. 

The old central school building became, in 1919, the first Americanization school in Washington, and continued there until 1924.  The structure then became the Columbia Junior High School, the first such ‘junior high’ school in the District.  In 1931, the building was turned over to the Abbott Vocational School, and operated as such until it became the Alexander Graham Bell Vocational School beginning in 1948.  The building was razed only days after it was abandoned on September 10, 1951 when Superintendent Hobart M. Corning asked for “quick razing to beat vandals who, he feared, might come close to tearing it down without benefit of wreckers’ contract.” 

The demolition of the old Central High School was part of a city led plan in 1951 to clear the entire Square, including the 18 three-story row houses along 6^th Street.  The only remaining building by 1952 was the Polk School, then used as a health clinic.     

The city government went about transforming the site shortly thereafter into a storage facility for the police to store abandoned cars.  Ten years later, however, and effort was realized to transform the Square into a spectacular recreational playground.  The culmination of the dream of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert was a $500,000 playground with a variety of unusual features that opened on June 3, 1964.

Its usual playground features such as slides and swing sets were supplanted with items such as a 1888 steam locomotive that had once hauled bananas in Guatemala, an army tank from World War II, three trolleys, an amphibious craft, soapbox racing course, tugboat, two air force jet planes, a Marine obstacle course, and a fire engine.  The armed forces had supplied the abandoned military equipment.   

It had cost the DC government $1.3 million, and another $109,000 per year to maintain the various features, used by 10,000 youngsters that lived within walking distance of the playground.  Its fate was sealed during the ongoing debate to find land for a new school to replace “Shameful Shaw” as it was named one of the top location possibilities in 1966, although never realized.  The equipment was removed and the site largely used for open field and play grounds.  Friends of Kennedy Playground began a successful effort to renovate the site and ensure that the new Kennedy Recreation Center was built and opened in 2003.      

Text and Pictures Copyright Paul K. Williams