(The Wheels on the Train) Go Round and Round

archival print. 11’’ x 17’’

There is a poem in SEMIOTICS that evokes the title of the Pullman porter. In the late 1860s in Chicago, George M. Pullman created the Pullman Palace Car Company where he hired formerly enslaved Africans as cheap labor that had been ‘trained to be the perfect servant’. These porters played an important part in the Great Migration, getting copies of the Chicago Defender into the hands of folks down south. This Black owned paper carried news of what was happening up North and across the country regarding the civil rights movement as well as opportunities for factory work and a different life. This information was world changing to people who knew of their dwindling sharecropping opportunities in the South looking for a way to make a life that felt more possible. 

The composition of this piece is meant to be evocative of the Chicago flag, as well as a reminder that progress means a revolution, a turning, a transition from point A to point B. Home and destination tracked in our respective comings and goings by stars.

slicker than Pullman Porters slipping papers of what could be

into open palms itching to believe

an opportunity to make a name and keep it

so run to it!

More reading: https://www.history.com/articles/pullman-porters

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All artwork remains the copyright of Noni Williams and may not be reproduced in any way. NOT FOR RESALE.