He was born in Corsicana, Texas on January 3, 1900, and died on December 6, 1989, in Oakland, California. In 1929, Dellums was elected vice president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and became president in 1966. In the 1930s, Dellums was an officer in the NAACP Branch Office in Berkeley, California.
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was a labor union in the United States organized by the predominantly African-American Pullman Porters. Organized in 1925, it struggled for twelve years before winning its first collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company.
It was, in 1935 the first labor organization led by African-Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. It merged in 1978 with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC), now known as the Transportation Communications International Union.
Here's an excerpt from a Ron Dellums Interview, former U.S. Representative and member of the Ninth Congressional District, California and nephew of C. L. Dellums:
"C. L. Dellums, as you know, joined with A. Philip Randolph. These were guys that came out of the twenties, these were the old left-wing guys in the twenties. They came together and organized the first African American trade union in the history of America, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. These were guys who placed a great premium on the spoken word as a way of organizing, to be impressive when they challenged people. You know, people thought A. Philip Randolph and C. L. Dellums and these guys were Harvard graduates, because they developed an affect that challenged the system to deal with them intellectually, at an eyeball-to-eyeball level. "
"Well, my uncle: here's this beautiful, erudite, incredibly well-groomed, impeccable person with extraordinary articulation who, on Seventh Street, had an office over the pool hall. So in my life with this magnificent success model, and wherever I went, people, when they'd hear my last name would say, "Is C. L. Dellums your father?" And I'd say "No, my father is Verney Dellums, but C. L. Dellums is my uncle." But I immediately began to realize that C. L. was the man and that he commanded respect across the broad spectrum of people in the Bay Area. And going to his office, he had a staff person, he had an office, he smoked a pipe, he dressed elegantly. He was a fighter, he was strong, he was courageous. So this success model in my life was very important in shaping my life, because here I knew that you could succeed, that you could be successful. You did not have to be intimidated, and that you could be respected by people, because the politics of that community came through him: union activity, civil rights activity, et cetera. He was just this incredible, larger-than-life person who continued to push me to pursue my education. "
Located in the Woodland Memorial Park Cemetery, a small matchstick container hangs nearby the gravestone of one war veteran named Jim Dellums.
Avoid the use of acronym only logs, one word logs, logs with only 'Found it' and cut-n-paste logs. You must sign the log to claim the find. No exceptions, no excuses.
Note 7/11/16: Blank logs, emoticon logs and logs described above will now be deleted without notice.