Frank Boyd

Frank L. Boyd (November 17, 1881 – May 2, 1962) was an American labor organizer and local leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters from 1926 to 1951 in Minnesota. He was the first African American person in Minnesota to be an elector for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party and also one of the first two African American electors in the history of the Democratic Party. Early life Frank L. Boyd was born on November 17, 1881, in Atchison, Kansas, the oldest in a family of four children. His father, Asa, had formerly been enslaved in Kentucky. Boyd attended school in Kansas for seven years, and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Hattie, in 1904. Boyd married Hattie Boyd (née Mengler) in Pottawattamie, Iowa, in 1901. Career In St. Paul, Boyd initially worked as a porter in a barbershop. After three years, he was hired as a porter by the Northern Pacific Railroad.