Twenty-five unions found the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in Columbus, Ohio; Cigarmaker?s union leader Samuel Gompers is elected president. The AFL?s founding document?s preamble reads: ?A struggle is going on in all of the civilized world between oppressors and oppressed of all countries, between capitalist and laborer...? ? 1886
African-American delegates meet in Washington, D.C., to form the Colored National Labor Union as a branch of the all-white National Labor Union created three years earlier. Unlike the NLU, the CNLU welcomed members of all races. Isaac Myers was the CNLU's founding president; Frederick Douglas became president in 1872 - 1869