Hugh Mulzak served as the first Black Liberty ship captain during World War II. When offered the command, he refused to sail with a segregated crew. An updated repost in honor of Black History Month.
Born in 1886 on Union Island in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, he went to sea at 21 and served on British, Norwegian, and American sail and steam-powered ships. After studying at the Swansea Nautical College in South Wales, he earned a mate’s license in 1910. He served as a deck officer on four ships during World War I.
In 1918, he became a naturalized US citizen and in 1920 sat for his Master’s license, earning a perfect score on the test. Despite his experience and qualifications, he was generally only able to find work aboard American ships as a messman or cook. Mulzak has been described as “the most over-qualified ship’s cook in maritime history.”
When World War II broke out and there was a shortage of deck officers, Mulzak was given the opportunity to command a new Liberty ship. At age 56, it would be his first and possibly last chance to command. The ship was the SS Booker T. Washington, named after the influential Black educator, author, and orator. The ship was intended to have an all-Black crew.
When offered the command, Hugh Mulzak said no. He would not serve on a “Jim Crow” ship. In the United States, “Jim Crow” referred to the laws that codified racial segregation. Captain Mulzack refused to command a segregated ship.
After a protest by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other black organizations, the Maritime Commission backed down.
At a time when the US Navy would allow black sailors to serve only as stewards, the story of the Booker T. Washington and her African American skipper received wide coverage. For example, the October 5, 1942 issue of Time Magazine had the following story:
“Slight, grizzled Hugh Mulzac, ex-seaman, ex-mess boy, was catapulted front and center last week to become a Symbol of Negro participation in the war. When the Liberty freighter Booker T. Washington goes into service from California Shipbuilding’s Los Angeles yard in mid-October, the Maritime Commission decided, she will be commanded by a British West Indies-born Brooklyn man, the first Negro to hold a U. S. master’s certificate and the first to command a 10,500-ton ship.
“Captain Mulzac not only promised that he would be able to get qualified Negro officers to serve under him but said that he knew white as well as Negro crewmen willing to serve under him—for the Booker T. is not to be a Jim Crow ship. The Booker T. (for Taliaferro) will serve not only in the war of ocean transport but in the war against race discrimination.”
In 1942, the SS Booker T. Washington sailed with an integrated crew of 81 representing 18 different nationalities from eight nations and thirteen American states. Between 1942 and 1947, the ship, under the command of Hugh Mulzak, had made 22 round-trip voyages to Europe and the Pacific theatre, ferrying 18,000 troops and thousands of tons of supplies.
After the war, Mulzac could not get a position as a ship’s captain. In 1948 he unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit against the ship’s operators. In 1950 he made an unsuccessful bid for Queens Borough President under the American Labor Party ticket.
An early member of the National Maritime Union (NMU), his strong ties to the labor movement caused him to be blacklisted in the McCarthy era, resulting in the revocation of his seaman’s papers.
Mulzac was a self-taught painter, and in 1958, thirty-two of his oil paintings were put on exhibit at a 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 East Meadow, New York on January 30, 1971, at the age of 84.
The Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Coast Guard service commissioned the ‘SVGS CAPT. HUGH MULZAC’ on January 21st, 2019, the second SVG Coast Guard vessel to be named in honor of Captain Mulzac.