Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized at a mass meeting in Elks Hall in Harlem. A Philip Randolph was elected president. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters would become one of the most successful union organizing efforts in history. The union gave voice to the many railroad porters and attendants who were forced to work long hourse for relatively meager wages and benefits. By 1959, the union claimed more than 15,000 members. Its long-time president was A. Philip Randolph, who would go on to be a great civil rights leader. The message: "This organization is not here because somebody loved it; it is here because it pushed everybody out of its way."