09/07/2026
From enslaved workers in the 19th century to agricultural, industrial, and professional workers in the 20th and 21st centuries, African Americans have always been a vital part of the American workforce.
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 . 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
📸 1. Photograph by Isaac Sutton. 2. 3. Photograph by David Jackson. 4. 6. Photographs by Howard Morehead. 5. 7. Photograph by Griffith Davis. Johnson Publishing Company Archive. J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Made possible by the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution.
