Solon C. Bell was a union leader in the United States representing African American railroad workers. In the 1930s his actions helped unionize thousands of railroad employees. Bell and fellow organizer,

Ishmael Flory Ishmael Flory (July 4, 1907 – February 4, 2004) was a civil rights activist, trade union organizer, and communist party (CPUSA) leader in Illinois. Biography Ishmael was the youngest of nine children born to Samuel and Leola Hancock Flory in La ...

, were accused of promoting

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

by union leaders which resulted in them being fired and their establishment of the Dining Car and Railroad Food Workers' Union. He was brought before a congressional committee investigating communist organizing. He was the president of the Dining Car and Railroad Food Workers' Union. Prior to being discharged in 1947 after witnesses accused him of being a communist organizer among railroadmen, he was a union leader of hotel workers and bartenders and chairman of the Joint Council of Dining Car Employees Unions which consisted of dining car unions under the jurisdiction of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union. He refused to answer questions from a

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

committee investigating subversive activities and minor charges were brought against him, but he was not sentenced. His wife, Ida Roberta Bell (1904–1992), made dolls of prominent African American historical figures and used them to teach. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee and Bell was also her maiden surname.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American trade union leaders African-American trade unionists Victims of McCarthyism 20th-century African-American people {{US-activist-stub

See also

References