Economic Justice for African Americans

excellence
craftsmanship,
attention to detail

Chester Lewis was a train porter in his youth and became a lawyer who won millions of dollars for Pullman porters. Depicted in the fuselage above is Margaret Daniels, a maid at Cessna who dreamed of building airplanes. Lewis fought for her cause.

- Ellamonique Baccus

“It must be realized that despite arguments that Rome wasn’t built in a day or that racial problems can’t be cured overnight, 100 years is an awful lot of darkness, and Negroes are sick of evasions, weary of excuses, tired of technicalities, fed up with promises, and want action, freedom, and equality now.”
- Chester I. Lewis, Jr.

Chester Lewis challenged employment discrimination of Wichita’s largest employers in aircraft, the railroad, telecommunications, and the State and City governments, citing violations of Kansas and Federal law. And he won. Consistently.

In 1961, Lewis filed a federal complaint that ended the practice of the Kansas State Employment Service accepting racial designations like “whites only need apply.”

In 1966, Chester Lewis sent a formal complaint to the U.S Equal Opportunity Commission on behalf of Margaret Daniels, one of only three Black females employed by Cessna. Ms. Daniels requested transfer from being a maid to the sheet metal training class. Her request was denied. Her supervisor told her if she didn’t drop her grievance, she’d remain a maid all of her life. Daniels asked her union to investigate, but they refused.

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad employed Pullman Porters, who were part of the first all-Black union, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters [in 1925]. They expanded the Black middle class. They were on call 24/7 with no overtime pay yet delivered their service with excellence. They had a pivotal role in launching the largest migration in U.S. history – the Great Migration. Black people left the Jim Crow South, motivated by stories in Black newspapers that porters distributed that told of opportunities for a better life in northern and western cities.

In 1984, Chester Lewis sued the Santa Fe Railroad and won $8.5 million for Black porters, who had been underpaid from the 1920s-1970s. An additional $16.5 million was awarded from a second lawsuit.

Lewis flew people to Washington, DC in his private plane to lobby for passage of a national law that became the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That law made discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, or gender in employment, education, and public accommodations a federal crime.

For more information, visit the Wichita Public Library's page on Chester I. Lewis.