“The Porter,” airing Thursday on American Public Television’s GBX 44, is an 8-episode historic drama about the nation’s first Black workers’ union.
The Pullman porters worked on the transcontinental railroads in the US and Canada after WWI, handling passengers’ luggage, helping them to reserved seats or compartments, delivering meals. It was one of the very few opportunities in that segregated era for Black men to have well-paying jobs with security.
Why, Annmarie Marais, the series’ writer and showrunner, was asked, is it a good time now to examine this history?
“It’s always been a good time to discuss the truth of history in its entirety and revealing the sort of redacted parts of our histories,” she said. “There’s never been a bad time for that.”
Especially today, she noted, “There’s a willingness outside of those communities to hear these stories — and to present these stories to the world. Because the world is in a state of constantly shifting and constantly reckoning and realizing its own histories and the gaps in our history.
“So yes, now is a time when we can look at that political climate and struggle for equality on every level: racial equality, gender equality, whatever it may be. It’s the story of overcoming and is always going to be a relevant story about our lives as long as there is oppression and struggle. That’s always going to be a story that matters.”
This “Porter” is a fictional story, not a documentary. “But we always try to enforce the integrity of the series based on historical truth. I would like to say it’s based on 1,000 true stories. We tried to hold true to the integrity of the industry as much as possible.
“Also,” she added, “there’s something about the very creative imagination.”
“The Porter” follows two Black men on opposite journeys. One pursues the politics of making the porters into a political union to get basic rights and wages, the other is a bootlegger.
“In the early development stages we talked about the series as the story of unapologetic Black ambition. The question we posed to both of our characters is: What is the way to success?
“If we ask that to 100 people on the street we’d get 100 different answers. These are two brothers bonded by World War I, bonded by the trauma of their experiences in the world as Black men.
“One would say, ‘The rules don’t work for us. So why should I follow them? How can I change them?’
“And I always ask the question, Why are they right? And why are they wrong? When we go down that journey, it’s important to explore that.”
“The Porter” airs on July 11 on GBX 44
