Good Saturday Morning POU!
Hope you’ve enjoyed the series on World War II Black History! Our final post for this series is about the little known facts of African-Americans in the United States Merchant Marines.
Captain Hugh Mulzac
In 1942, against overwhelming odds, Captain Hugh Mulzac became the first African-American merchant marine naval officer to command an integrated crew during World War II. Born March 26, 1886 on Union Island, St. Vincent Island Group, British West Indies, Mulzac entered the Swansea Nautical College in South Wales to prepare for a seaman’s career while in his youth. He became an American citizen in 1918, and continued his training at the Shipping Board in New York. He earned a Master rating in 1918 which should have qualified him to command a ship, but this did not happen until September 29, 1942 because of racial discrimination. Although he earned his captain’s rating in 1918, racial prejudice denied him the right to command a ship for 24 years.
Later Mulzac was offered the command of a ship with an all-black crew. He refused, declaring that “under no circumstances will I command a Jim Crow vessel.” Twenty-two years passed before Mulzac would again receive an offer to command a naval ship. During World War II, his demand for an integrated crew was finally met, and he was put in command of the SS Booker T. Washington.
Launching of the SS Booker T. Washington. Elaine Mulzac, daughter of Captain Hugh Mulzac, Negro skipper of the SS Booker T. Washington, talks to two Negro workmen who helped construct the first Liberty Ship named for a Negro
With its crew of eighteen nationalities, the Booker T. Washington made twenty-two round-trip voyages in five years and carried 18,000 troops to Europe and the Pacific. On the day his ship was launched, Mulzac recalled, “Everything I ever was, stood for, fought for, dreamed of, came into focus that day… The concrete evidence of the achievement gives one’s strivings legitimacy, proves that the ambitions were valid, the struggle worthwhile. Being prevented for those twenty-four years from doing the work for which I was trained had robbed life of its most essential meaning. Now at last I could use my training and capabilities fully. It was like being born anew.”
Crew of SS Booker T. Washington with mascot “Booker” [photo from National Archives]
The Booker T. Washington was turned back over to the Maritime Commission in 1947. Despite his many years of service, Mulzac was never again given a similar assignment.
In 1948 he unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit against the ship’s operators. In 1950 he made a bid for Queens Borough President under the American Labor Party ticket. He lost the election, having gotten 15,500 votes.
Due to his strong ties to the labor movement, he found himself blacklisted in the era of McCarthyism. At the New York state election, 1958, he ran on the Independent-Socialist ticket for New York State Comptroller.
Mulzac was a self-taught painter, and in 1958, thirty-two of his oil paintings were put on exhibit at an one man show in the Countee Cullen Library in Manhattan. In 1960 a Federal Judge restored his seaman’s papers and license, and at the age of 74 he was able to find work as a night mate.
Captain Mulzac died in 1971, at age 84 years, without achieving veteran status for service to his country. Mariners did not receive veteran status until 1988 and only after a long court battle.