Teamsters local 570

The First Black-Led Union Wouldn’t Have Existed Without This Woman

Updated On: Jun 19, 2018

June 19, 2018 | U.S. LABOR HISTORY | Rosina Corrothers Tucker was born in 1881 in Washington, D.C. She married a preacher, and might have lived a quiet life, except the preacher died, and when she remarried it was to a man whose job put the couple in just the right place and time to make history. Rosina’s husband Berthea Tucker was a Pullman porter. In the 1920’s, the Pullman Palace Car Company was the nation’s largest single employer of black men. Pullman porters formed the first black-led union to be formally recognized by the American Federation of Labor, and eventually led the charge on civil rights, and Rosina Tucker became one of the most influential female labor and civil rights organizers in American history… Timeline