‘Miles of Smiles’ chronicles story of Sleeping Car Porters union

The film "Miles of Smiles" will be shown Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m. at the St. Paul Labor Centre, 411 Main St., St. Paul. The screening is free and open to all.

"Miles of Smiles" (58 minutes, 1983) chronicles the organizing of the first black trade union — the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This inspiring story of the Pullman porters provides one of the few accounts of African-American working life between the Civil War and World War II. It also chronicles the harsh discrimination which lay behind the porters\’ smiling service.

Narrator Rosina Tucker, a 100-year-old union organizer and porter\’s widow, describes how after a 12-year struggle led by A. Philip Randolph, the porters won the first contract ever negotiated with black workers.

"Miles of Smiles" both recovers an important chapter in the emergence of black America and reveals a key source of the Civil Rights movement. The film was produced by Paul Wagner and Jack Santino.

The Jan. 16 screening is co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service and the St. Paul Trades & Labor Assembly.