(Courtesy of Service Employees International Union)

• 1850 - The American League of Colored Laborers, the first organization of black workers, was established in New York City.

• 1866 - Isaac Myers formed a cooperative union in Baltimore which prevented the efforts of whites to drive blacks out of other professions. Within 6 months the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company employed 300 black workers at $3 a day wages. The organization was able to obtain a number of government contracts and paid off their debts in 5 years.

• 1868 - Myers became president of the Colored Caulker's Trades Union Society of Baltimore.


• 1869 - The National Labor Union became the first organization of white workers to advocate for the creation of black labor unions and to allow blacks to attend its annual meeting.

• 1886 - There were 60,000 Blacks among the nearly one million membership of the Knights of Labor.

• 1890 - At least five African-American miners were among the elected delegates to the founding UMWA convention.

• 1890 - African-American miner Richard L. Davis became a member of the executive board of the United Mine Workers of America, a union in which more than half of the workers were black.

• 1918 - The Department of Labor's Division of Negro Economics, the first federal bureau to attempt to ease labor-related racial tensions caused by blacks leaving the South, was established.

• 1919 - Robert L. Hill of Winchester, Arkansas, a black tenant farmer, formed the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, an organization comprised of sharecroppers and tenant farmers. The union organized resistance among blacks in Elaine, Arkansas, including withholding black women's services to whites and insisting on higher wages for cotton pickers. The union also hired lawyers at the state capital and planned to sue landlords for shares allegedly withheld from them. The union was destroyed by the repression that ensued following the infamous Elaine Race Riot on September 30. Recommended reading: Blood In Their Eyes, by Grif Stockley.

• 1928 - A. Philip Randolph organized porters into the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

• 1937 - The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first black affiliate of one of the most powerful unions of the era, the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

• 1945 - The Ives-Quinn Act, the first state legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of race, creed, or color, was passed.

• 1957 - A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was elected as the AFL-CIO's first black vice president.

• 1957 - Trade Union Leadership Conference (TULC) was formed by a group of Detroit Negro unionists. Most of the founders were from the UAW but in 1960 there were about as many Negroes from other unions in the TULC as from the UAW.

• 1960 - Black labor activists organized the Negro American Labor Council to promote civil rights in the American labor movement.

• 1963 - A. Philip Randolph and the Negro American Labor Council initiated the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr, gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

• 1964 - The last segregated affiliate of the AFL-CIO integrated.

• 1964 - The Civil Rights Act, the first federal fair employment legislation, was passed.

• Local 1199NY attracted support from prominent civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Local 1199 was, in the words of Malcolm X, "not afraid of upsetting the applecart of those people who are running City Hall." In 1969, civil rights leaders rallied together for a massive protest in Charleston, S.C., for a labor dispute so contentious it ultimately led to federal mediation. The union's victory strengthened its ranks and Local 1199 grew to a membership of over 150,000 by the mid-1970s. More importantly, the shared struggle of the Charleston protest forged bonds between Southern civil rights leaders and those attempting to rework traditional unions to serve the needs of black workers.

• National black organizations and labor unions worked together to develop several federally funded programs, including the Recruitment and Training Program (Workers Defense League), the Labor Education and Advancement Program (Urban League), and the Human Resources Development Institute (AFL-CIO). These programs brought blacks into apprenticeship programs in the 1970s, giving some workers long-awaited upward mobility toward more highly skilled and better-paying jobs.

• 1996 - Patricia A. Ford was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU.

• 2004 - Gerry Hudson was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU.