Black Workers Helped Build America’s Labor Movement — Even As Unions And Federal Labor Protections Often Left Them Behind
For many Americans, Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer — a long weekend filled with cookouts, family gatherings and one last chance to enjoy the season.
But the federal holiday carries a much deeper history. Labor Day recognizes the social and economic contributions of American workers, and Black workers played a critical role in building the labor movement that helped make those protections possible.
Their contributions, however, have not always received equal recognition.
Black Women Organized Before Labor Day Became A Federal Holiday
More than a decade before Labor Day became a federal holiday, Black washerwomen in Atlanta were already organizing for better pay and working conditions.
In 1881, about 20 Black women formed the Washing Society, challenging an economic system that required many domestic workers and washerwomen to labor long hours while earning just $4 to $8 a month. Some workers were underpaid or not paid at all.
The organization eventually grew to roughly 3,000 members.
The women launched a weeks-long strike and demanded a standard rate of $1 per dozen pounds of laundry. Despite threats of fines and arrests, they continued withholding their labor until city officials ultimately agreed to their demands.
Their campaign became one of the largest labor actions organized by Black workers of its era and helped inspire other working-class communities to push for higher wages.
A year later, workers in New York held what is recognized as one of the earliest Labor Day celebrations, organized by the city’s Central Labor Union.
Black workers, however, were largely excluded from many labor unions and organizations of the period.
Black Pullman Workers Were Left Outside A Landmark Strike
That exclusion was evident during the Pullman Strike of 1894, one of the most significant labor conflicts in American history.
The Pullman Palace Car Company had laid off thousands of employees and cut wages, triggering a strike among workers in Chicago.
But many Black Pullman workers found themselves in a very different position.
Company founder George Pullman had employed thousands of Black men, including formerly enslaved people, as porters serving passengers aboard sleeping cars traveling across the country.
The jobs offered employment opportunities at a time when few were available to Black men, but porters routinely faced low wages, long hours and discrimination.
When the American Railway Union organized the Pullman Strike, Black workers were barred from membership. As a result, many Black porters continued working while white employees walked off the job.
Congress and President Grover Cleveland established Labor Day as a federal holiday in 1894, recognizing it as an annual celebration of American workers and their economic and social contributions.
Yet many of the Black workers helping sustain the nation’s railroad system remained outside the labor organizations receiving national attention.
Pullman Porters Built Their Own Union
Black Pullman porters would eventually organize for themselves.
In 1925, labor leader A. Philip Randolph helped establish the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which became one of the most influential Black-led labor organizations in American history.
Its work extended beyond wages and workplace protections. Randolph and the union became important forces in the broader fight for Black civil rights.
Still, federal labor laws continued to leave large numbers of Black Americans behind.
When Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the law established a federal minimum wage, overtime protections and restrictions on child labor.
Agricultural and domestic workers, however, were initially excluded from major portions of those protections. At the time, Black Americans were disproportionately represented in both industries.
It would take decades of organizing and the broader civil rights movement before federal law provided stronger protections against racial discrimination in employment.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ultimately made employment discrimination based on race illegal.
Black Labor Has Always Been Part Of America’s Story
The history stretches far beyond any single union or strike.
Black labor helped build the American economy and some of the country’s most recognizable institutions. Black workers served America’s railroads, worked its farms and factories, maintained homes and businesses and helped power the nation’s industrial expansion.
During World War II, thousands of Black women joined the industrial workforce as part of the generation now remembered as the nation’s “Rosies,” helping produce aircraft, weapons and other materials essential to the war effort.
From Atlanta’s washerwomen to Pullman porters and Black factory workers, generations of Black Americans repeatedly fought not only for the right to work, but for the right to be treated fairly while doing it.
Labor Day may recognize America’s workers broadly, but Black labor history is a reminder that many of the rights celebrated today were won only after workers who had been excluded demanded a place at the table.
For Black Americans, that struggle — and the labor that helped build the nation in the first place — remains an essential part of what Labor Day represents.
