In June 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation declaring the first Monday of each September as a national holiday to honor the contributions of American workers and to recognize the value of the American labor movement. In fact, workers had proposed a national holiday in the early 1880s and by 1894, 30 states had already officially celebrated #LaborDay.
This was the era of the celebrated industrial capitalists and financiers, the Robber Barons, and the inventors such as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, as conceived by the workers, however, Labor Day was not just a holiday. It was a day to “speak truth to power,” demanding a livable wage, safe working conditions, and the eight-hour day.
Unfortunately, Black workers were generally excluded from trade unions and basically ignored in the acknowledgement of labor’s contributions to the nation. Black workers were left to organize or fend for themselves.
In 1869, Isaac Myers, a Baltimore ship caulker, founded the Colored National Labor Union which brought together representatives from other Black unions. After Reconstruction, many smaller associations in southern urban centers like Richmond, Virginia, Galveston, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana began to emerge.
The American Federation of Labor, founded in 1881, did not recognize African American labor unions until 1925. At that time, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, America’s largest all-Black labor union, founded and led by A. Philip Randolph was admitted.
View photographs from our collection documenting African Americans at work throughout the decades: https://s.si.edu/45zNP2t
#APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory
📸 1. and 5. Courtesy of National Archives/Interim Archives/Getty Images. 2. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Charles A. Harris and Beatrice Harris in memory of Charles "Teenie" Harris, © Carnegie Museum of Art, Charles "Teenie" Harris Archive. 3. Courtesy of Bettmann/Getty Images. 4. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Estate of Lloyd W. Yearwood.
