By Jesse Russell

In honor of Black History Month, the Ethnic Heritage Museum in Rockford, Ill. is hosting an exhibit dedicated to the nation's first black labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Larry Tye is author of the book "Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class." We asked Tye to explain the importance of the Porters union:

[Tye]: A man named A. Philip Randolph who had a perfect track record of failure in anything he ever tried in terms of unions before--he had one distinct advantage over the previous union efforts, which was he was not a Pullman Porter and he couldn't be fired. It took him 12 years, almost to the day, of hard work, of watching lots of Porters be fired, of watching some of his lieutenants be beat up, but he did 12 years to the day after he started this drive succeed in getting the Pullman company to sign a contract with his Porters. This was the first successful black trade union in America. So it was really quite extraordinary. It got them higher wages, got them lower working hours, but most importantly it got them the kind of respect they felt they had never had before.