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Article: BLACK PORTERS FINALLY TRAVEL RAIL IN STYLE : BYGONE ERA COMES RUSHING BACK IN PULLMAN BLUES TOUR.(NEWS)
- Article from:
- Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
- Article date:
- February 23, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Daily News. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Ellen Sweets The Dallas Morning News
Talking with Virgil and Garrard Smock is like having a conversation with history. They bring to life an era when luxury passenger trains criss-crossed America and African-American men served as porters on the segregated lines.
The Smock brothers served meals in dining cars where they could not eat; shined shoes they would never wear and fluffed pillows in cars where they could not sleep.
Together the Smocks - Virgil 81, Garrard, 79, and their late brother, George - have a half-century of service with the Pullman Company, one-time maker of the finely furnished ``palace'' train cars that carried the ...