Days after an attendee randomly asked about the lack of stories on the Pullman porters' wives at a CR Gibbs' Black History lecture at DC's Woodridge Library, the nation's first Women's History Museum dedicated to the Ladies Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters broke ground in Chicago.

The museum stands as the inaugural extension of what will become A. Philip Randolph's Way, America's first Black Labor History Tourism District. Dr. Lyn Hughes founded the original museum, the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, in 1995.

"Now we're standing in front of (what will be) the world's first and only Black labor, Black Women's Ladies Auxiliary museum, on the same block as the world's first and only Black labor history museum in the world's first and only Black labor tourism district," says Dr. David Peterson, executive director of the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, at the groundbreaking.

When completed, the new museum will serve as a vital repository of stories illuminating the intersection of race, gender, and class in American labor history. The Black Labor Tourist District will be 20 minutes from the soon-to-open Obama Presidential Library.

Besides the post office, another "good" Black job was working on the railroad. "The railroads were a salvation for Black people," confirmed the now 98-year-old Lola McCann in Port of Harlem's "It Took 63 Years to Meet the Classical 96-Year-Old Lola McCann."

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), established in 1925 when McCann was two-years-old, marked a monumental moment in American labor history as the first African-American labor union to receive a charter from the American Federation of Labor. This groundbreaking organization played a vital role in advocating for fair wages, improved working conditions, and respect for African American workers in the face of systemic racism and discrimination.

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Rosina Corrothers-Tucker is just one woman of many who helped propel the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to success. She and other porters’ wives, along with Pullman maids, held annual conventions, conducted door-to-door canvassing, fundraised, ran local chapters and hosted dinners for visiting Brotherhood leaders.

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