[1] Thomas Redd, a brakeman on the Illinois Central Railroad who had been born soon after the American Civil War ended in 1865, was the prime mover in forming the association.
[4] The Bureau of Labor Statistics's 1936 Handbook of American trade-unions noted that "Negroes are ineligible for membership in most of the standard railroad unions and have therefore formed their own, somewhat sporadically and for the most part locally.
[6] At the time the 1936 Handbook of American trade-unions was prepared, the Bureau did not treat the International Association of Railway Employees as an established organization, since the undertaking still had a "tentative and formative nature.
"[7] In the late 1930s the IARE hired civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston to present their case, and he continued to work for them for the next ten years.
[8] In the 1940s the IARE helped the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) in its investigations into discrimination, although during World War II the government chose not to follow up and potentially disrupt the vital railroad industry.
[11] In this case, the BLFE had made an agreement with the L&N that whites would get the traditionally dirty and dangerous fireman job on the cleaner and safer diesel engines.