(rshsdepot) Portland, ME

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

Revived railroad carries memories for black Mainers

By C. KALIMAH REDD, Portland Press Herald Writer

Charles "Eddie" Cummings was a stickler for time. To him, 6:04 meant
something. If you were late for your shift at Portland's Union Station, you
were sent home.
Leslie "Tate" Cummings was a people person. He used his gregarious
personality to run a business selling coffee, muffins and doughnuts to
workers at the railroad offices.

Eugene "Gene" Cummings was the politician. He sometimes aided Portland
police, serving as the eyes and ears for the station.
Memories of these men - now deceased - swirled in the mind of Leonard
Cummings, a son of Eugene, the morning of Dec. 14 when he boarded the
inaugural run of the Downeaster - the first passenger railroad service to
travel between Portland and Boston in 37 years.
All three men, who were African-American, were employed by the Maine Central
Railroad at Union Station in the early 20th century as luggage handlers or
"redcaps." Cummings, 67, worried that the rich history of these men and
other black people who gave much of their lives to working in Maine's
railroad system would be overlooked in the excitement of the railroad's
return.
"That's why I had to go," Cummings said. "Maine has a black history that has
to be told."
As many as a dozen workers carried bags, cleaned bathrooms or cooked for
passengers traveling into and out of Union Station before it was torn down
the morning of Aug. 31, 1961. Many of these people, like the Cummings
brothers, were related and settled in the Portland area from Massachusetts
or Canada. Portland was considered a safe and affordable place to raise a
family. Many of the railroad employees at Union Station lived on nearby A
Street.
When the station was completed in 1888, the nation was caught up in a period
of rapid change. As part of the Industrial Revolution, a national railway
system was emerging and knitting the country together.
To service these trains and stations, railways commissioned a legion of
recently freed slaves, who had skills in manual labor in fields or
factories, or domestic skills such as cleaning, cooking and serving.
One railway known as the Pullman Sleeping Car Co. began to employ
exclusively blacks. The system was said to retain the racial infrastructure
in a manner that was acceptable to the general public.
The Maine Central Railroad and other rail services in Maine reflected this
national trend. About six redcaps, a term used to describe their apple-red
hats, worked the Boston-Maine Flying Yankee and Hemlock services.
Work as a redcap was one of the few job opportunities for blacks in
Portland, where steady employment was very limited. But there was virtually
no chance for advancement. Eddie Cummings rose no higher than the rank of
redcap captain even after 50 years of service.
"Although he could have been whatever he wanted, he made the best of it with
what was available for him," Cummings said.
Professional career opportunities around Portland were virtually
nonexistent. Cummings recalled a relative who was a pharmacist coming to
Portland to look for work. No one would hire him, so he too became a redcap.
"It was somewhat left to black people that (service railroad jobs) were
their position," said Gerald Talbot, prominent local black historian, "but
for black people to hold that position and to be respectable and cordial and
kind. To be personable and to be the best they could be, they brought
dignity to it."
Indeed. Wayne Davis, head of the Trainriders/Northeast, said as a child
traveling along the train system, he remembers the redcaps as "most
attentive, polite and well-spoken."
"I can bet there are a lot of people who entrusted their kids to these car
attendants," he said.
Though the redcaps worked for tips and were not salaried until 1938,
Portland redcaps managed to earn a living with the income from their
railroad work and other side businesses.
The majority owned their own homes and trucks. Eddie Cummings put six of his
seven children through college.
Nationally, African-Americans working in the train industry formed the first
black labor union in 1925, shortly before the number of black porters peaked
at 20,224. Known as the Brotherhood of Pullman Sleeping Car Porters, the
group was led by A. Philip Randolph.
The union made several demands, including an end to tipping, a raise in
salary to $150 a month, fair pay for overtime, a work reduction from 400 to
240 hours a month, and scheduled time to sleep - four hours the first night
of their weeks and six hours the following nights.
When the redcaps who worked for companies other than Pullman formed their
own union in 1938 with help from the Pullman porters organization, they
achieved salaries and shift schedules for the first time.
Tim Wilson, who directs the Seeds of Peace Camp in Otisfield, compared the
brotherhood porters to the underground railroad because of the national
network of opportunity the porters provided for newly freed slaves in the
South.
"They would go back and say, 'There is a new hotel being built in New York,'
" Wilson said. "They would get relatives and made sure that they got there."
Wilson's grandfather, Andrew Mobley, worked as a porter and was one of the
original members of the Pullman porters union. He traveled the country on a
route from Charleston, S.C., to Baltimore to Washington. Occasionally, he
would ride to Pittsburgh to visit Wilson and his family.
There, Mobley would carry him atop his tall shoulders and give him horse
rides on his spit-shined black boots. He worked from 1898 to 1948.
The service these porters and redcaps provided was extraordinary. Over the
years, Eddie Cummings met and served thousands of celebrity travelers. "They
would call ahead and say, 'Eddie, take care of me,' " Leonard Cummings said.
Among them were President Herbert Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, pianist Ignace
Paderewski and diva Ernestine Schumann-Heink. His friends included
politician Edmund Muskie and heavyweight champion Gene Tunney.
After the closing of Union Station, Eddie Cummings and the rest of the
redcaps turned to the nation's newest mode of transportation and become
skycaps, handling luggage at Portland International Jetport.
Cummings said many young people know little about the contributions of these
individuals. His wife, Mary Jane, said the legacy of the redcaps needs to be
preserved.
"It's our responsibility to tell this story and to remind young people of
what our parents went through and how we got to where we are now," she said.

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #278
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