ARENA’S PAGE STUDY GUIDE COntentS PULLmaN PORTER BLUES The Play Now playing in the Kreeger Meet the Playwright November 23rd, 2012 – January 6th, 2013 Pullman Sleeping Car Porters written by Cheryl L. West directed by Lisa Peterson Building a Brotherhood a co-production with Seattle Repertory Theatre Great Minds in Disagreement Joe Louis and the Fight of 1937 Blues in the 1930s Three Big Questions CEPHAS: How can me taking a job doing what Additional Resources you and Pops do be a sign of disrespect? SYLVESTER: Because you were supposed to be better than this! The PlaY As the Panama Limited train chugs from Chicago to New Orleans, the passengers and employees anticipate great Pullman service and jiving blues music. Cephas is the third generation of proud Sykes men who have worked all their lives as Pullman porters. Working through discrimination and the Great Depression, his grandfather, Monroe, and his father, Sylvester, have made enough money to send Cephas to college to become a doctor. This summer though Cephas wants to know what it is to be a “working man.” The entire nation is anxiously waiting for the boxing match pitting African- American Heavyweight hero, Joe Louis, against James Braddock. While the “Brown Bomber” fights in the ring, Cephas fights to make his own choices. Can Cephas uphold the Sykes pride and still be his own person? Or will he end up living a life full of the blues that his family has always sung? l Major support for this program is provided by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation. Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT: BUILDING A BROTHERHOOD ullman porters didn’t fight for better pay, working make much money. conditions and respect for PAlthough George workers. The BSCP won in 1937, Pullman required 400 hours the year the play takes place. a month from his employees Cheryl L. West (which meant sometimes BSCP fueled the Civil Rights working for 20 hours straight), Movement. E.D. Nixon, who led the average pay of a Pullman porter in a local BSCP chapter, helped start “ That’s what’s beautiful 1926 was $810 a year. This would be about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Pullman $7,500 a year today. Porters made most porters circulated the Chicago Defender, and unique about of their income from tips – but still had to an African-American newspaper, after it families, and tragic: pay for their meals, uniforms and upkeep. was banned. l people are trying to give you the love that By 1925, many Pullman porters had enough. They formed The Brotherhood of Sleeping ACTIVITY: Choose a current they have, but they Car Porters (BSCP) the first African- group of workers which you feel don’t always give you American workers union to sign a collective needs more rights. Discuss what what you need.” bargaining agreement with a major US rights its workers should have and why. corporation. A. Phillip Randolph led the Make a speech to the class demanding these rights with supporting evidence. A Seattle-based playwright, Cheryl L. West grew up in Markham, a suburb of Chicago. Through the work of the BSCP, Pullman porter jobs became well- She felt overshadowed by her talented brother. When West respected and desirable. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall asked her mom what talents and Malcolm X were once porters. she had, she responded, “You’re good with people.” So West studied social work and journalism in college, BOOKER T. WaSHINGTON VS. W.E.B. DUBOIs– receiving several degrees. It wasn’t until her boyfriend read her poetry when they were in GREAT MINDS IN DISAGREEMENT their mid-20s that she started heryl West’s characters of Monroe and Sylvester disagree on how to best better writing for theater. It was C their position in society. Their conflict echoes a bigger conflict in history between clear she had found her true two famous black men: W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. passion. Common subjects for West Booker T. Washington W.E.B. DuBois (1858-1963), an are families – traditional or (1856-1915) was an intellectual, political thinker and not, African-American culture educator, reformer, and scholar who was also influential in and history, and of course, the most influential the black community, disagreed. blues music. She won a black leader of his time. He thought that accepting National Endowment for the He believed that African discrimination at all was a problem. Arts Playwriting Award in Americans should accept discrimination He wanted immediate civil action and helped 1995-96. Her play, Before It for the time being and, instead, elevate found the NAACP. He thought that African Hits Home, won the Susan themselves by working hard to earn the Americans would be saved by their “exceptional Smith Blackburn Prize in respect of whites in society. Then they men” – what he called the “Talented Tenth.” These 1990, and is being adapted would be accepted as citizens. men were college educated (like Sylvester wants into a movie. Holiday Heart, a Cephas to be) and could advance their race. controversial play about AIDS, drug addiction, transexuality – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and family, also became a NAACP movie. Other works include Jar the Floor, Puddin ‘n Pete, ACTIVITY: As a class debate the positions taken by Washington and Dubois. Play On!, Birdie Blue, and Addy: Which better served African Americans in their quest for respect and equality? An American Girl Story. Which man’s methods do you see in use today? PULLmaN SLEEPING CaR PORTERS Job Expectations: and security guard. A Pullman My first train ride at the age of five The company came to porter was expected to perform any was both exhilarating and fascinating. favor young black men task asked of him by a passenger, I remember being utterly enamored of about 25, with at least especially if he wanted a good tip. with the train’s compulsively smiling five years of Any missing items or Pullman porters. With the naiveté of work experience, mistakes came out of his the innocent, I remember concluding hoping that they would pay. All the while he must that the porters must smile all the settle into a long career. remain an “ambassador time because they were so happy Training was rigorous – of good will” for the to ride the train all day, every day. new hires learned the Pullman Company. Little did I know that the effusive basic mechanical aspects smiling was one of many rules and of a Pullman car as well Conductors: that, in order to receive full pay, the as service standards Conductors (the ever-smiling Porters were required to covering everything from supervisors) were work 400 hours per month or 11,000 berth (bed) preparation usually white males and miles—whichever occurred first— to the proper pouring responsible for record sometimes standing 20 hours straight of a beverage. Their keeping and collecting while being humiliated similarly as performances were and selling tickets. In they were on a slave plantation. reviewed throughout their other railroad companies, –Cheryl West, playwright careers. a conductor’s main responsibilities were Description: focusing on the safe and ACTIVITY: Sometimes we Sleeping car porters efficient movement of the don’t fully understand what we see when we’re young. were often in charge of train. A Pullman conductor’s Think of something you understand a car of 15-20 passengers. The job main job was ensuring that all Pullman better about the world now that you was a cross between a bellhop, valet, service was perfect and all passengers are not seeing through a child’s eyes. housekeeper, mechanic, baby sitter were happy. l JOE LOUIS AND THE FIGHT OF 1937 “Mr. Louis’ record speaks for itself. He won’t need the ‘speed of the jungle’ nor ‘the killer instinct.’ He will beat him with his mind, target his weakness. That’s how you always beat an inferior opponent, with your mind.” – Sylvester Joe Louis (The Brown Bomber) James Braddock (Cinderella Man) was born May 13, 1914 near Lafayette, The COntenDerS: was born June 7th, 1905 to an Irish- Alabama. As a child, he had a Catholic family in Hell’s Kitchen in New speech impediment and didn’t York City. He became a professional speak much until he was about fighter at age 21, and his career was six years old. In 1926, after a scare on the rise until he lost the light from the Ku Klux Klan, his family heavyweight championship match in moved to Detroit with many other 1929. He struggled to put food on the African Americans in what was table for his wife and three children. called “The Great Migration.” There In 1934, his luck changed and “Jimmy” are rumors that Louis’s mother started winning. Always an underdog, wanted him to play violin. When he became the new heavyweight he began boxing at 17, he hid his champion of the world in 1935’s boxing gloves in his violin case to Madison Square Garden fight against keep his mother from knowing. He Max Baer. Braddock was thought to quickly became a star not only in be in the prime of his career when he the African-American community, but fought Joe Louis to defend his world in the worldwide boxing community. title. Few knew he was on medication He was 23 when he went up for the JamES for arthritis. The medication numbed Worldwide Championship Title, one of JOE him and limited him from lifting his left the youngest contenders ever.