Sleeping car porters are a well-known part of history. The card game of Bid Whist is not. Yet the story of the men and the story of the card game are very much intertwined.
As the Pullman porters traveled the country, they spread information, music and card games like Bid Whist. (Bid Whist is a trick-taking strategic card game compared to spades and bridge.) Why haven’t more people heard of it?
Here’s the story:
Table of contents
How Bid Whist Came About
Some sources say Bid Whist originated in Turkey and was brought to the United States by the slave trade coming in from Europe. On many plantations, teaching slaves to read was forbidden, but plantation owners felt card-playing was harmless enough. Bid Whist was the game of choice at that time. It could be fast-paced and strategic. The card-playing kept slaves’s minds occupied.
The game itself descended from the British game of whist. Whist, as played during the 18th and 19th centuries was played by four people, paired into two teams. It, too, involved trick-taking and required high concentration. As a result, whist players played silently, table-by-table.
Bid Whist has other variables that make it different from whist, but one of the notable ones is that it’s an energetic game, and trash-talking is expected throughout. Since the game involves strategy, card-counting, and careful communication between partners, a good insult can throw off a player’s concentration possibly creating an opening to the other team. (The trash talking is to be limited to remarks about the game being played.)
One of the beauties of the game is that Bid Whist can be played by newcomers. But like the game of bridge, as players learn more about the nuances of bidding and the art of the card game, it becomes a highly complex strategy game.
Where the Pullman Company Comes In
After the Civil War (about 1867), the Pullman Company began expanding their train lines and instituted sleeper cars. Businesspeople were traveling farther, and if Pullman added a new class of service with sleeping cars, the travelers could arrive at their destination refreshed for a good day of meetings.
To facilitate this, the Pullman Company needed workers to serve meals, make beds, shine shoes, and fetch whatever it was that a businessman might request. To George Pullman, Black former slaves seemed like a natural fit for this work. The former slaves “knew their place” and needed jobs.
The formerly enslaved men were glad to have job options. The only other work easily available to them otherwise was sharecropping, and that was not too distant from slavery. The porters were enthusiastic about the opportunities for travel. They had no idea what the experience would be like, but the world was opening up for them.
Bid Whist became a favorite among porters and waiters working on train lines. As a result, many Bid Whist terms come from trains and cross-country travel. The phrase “running a Boston” is thought to come from the all-night card games played on the longer train routes. If you were the big winner, you could brag, “I won all the way from New Orleans to Boston!”
Sharing the Story Today
Lamont Jones is a business executive and an attorney with a specialty in the field of boxing. Though he did not grow up playing Bid Whist, he is among the people who are determined to spread the news and the fun of the game.
Jones did not encounter the game until he arrived at Columbia Law School. There he met up with two military school graduates, and one young man who had been a star on the Columbia College football team.
The four Black fellows became friends. Soon two of them, Randy Nixon and Terry Brown, started talking about the game they played growing up: Bid Whist.
Lamont Jones and Sean Long did not know the game but were eager students. They knew they had to learn quickly to return the trash-talking they were receiving from Nixon and Brown. Soon it was one of the men’s favorite pastimes when taking study breaks—a friendly way to burn off energy and give their minds a break from the law books.
Lamont Jones Shares What He Learned
In Lamont Jones’s delightful book, The Gist of Bid Whist, he presents the game in such a way that a beginner can pick it up. But as the chapters continue, more advanced play is presented. Throughout the book there are interesting facts:
- After learning the game, Jones found that even in the white shoe law firm where he first worked, Bid Whist came in handy. Jones practiced law in the rough and tumble field of sports (primarily boxing but also track and field competitions). Bid Whist was a natural way to reach out to new clients.
- During the civil rights movement, the game was used as a way to relieve tension during very terrible times.
- Thurgood Marshall, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, hotel magnate Sheila Johnson, Michelle Obama, political strategist Valerie Jarrett, and Congressman Jim Clyburn are all known to have played the game.
- As Lamont Jones continued his pursuit of the game, he also found it a great way to bond with his daughter. He started teaching her when she was young, and she was only 8 when they won their first tournament.
Trash Talking Continues
Whatever your game of choice, whether it’s bridge, or spades, or Bid Whist, Jones is the ideal cheerleader for card-playing. He points out the fun, joy, and long-lasting connections that come about through this type of play.
To conclude the book, he returns to his old law school friends. He tells the reader that when he told Randy and Terry (the two friends who taught him the game) that he was writing a book on Bid Whist, their immediate response was fully in character: “YOU writing a Bid Whist book—what is it a comic book?”
They were actually playing a game of Bid Whist at the time, and whenever Randy and Terry won a hand, they would comment to Lamont: “Hey, put THIS under the chapter on ‘beatdowns!’”
One More Note about Pullman Porters
The conductors on the Pullman trains were all white men and were better paid than the Pullman porters. It eventually required unionization to improve their working conditions for the porters. In 1925, A. Philip Randolph (also a Bid Whist player) formed the Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters. His work to form a union eventually made a difference.
But in the meantime, the sleeping car porters were a pivotal part of the growth of the country. As they traveled, they carried with them news—both word-of-mouth news and copies of Black newspapers. They learned new music that they took home with them, and they introduced new card games to everyone they encountered.
This process opened up the country to Black families more rapidly than anyone could have imagined.
Follow this link to learn more about Lamont Jones’s book.https://gistofbidwhist.com/