Mulzac, Hugh

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Mulzac, Hugh

March 26, 1886
January 31, 1971

Hugh Mulzac, a seaman, was born on March 26, 1886, on Union Island, one of the small islands of the multistate of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. After completing secondary education in the capital town, Kingstown, he was lured to the sea. This was not surprising since in the small islands of the Grenadines the sea was always a central part of one's childhood consciousness. Moreover his father had moved from cotton planting to a preoccupation with the shipbuilding and whaling business. He began by sailing the islands of the eastern Caribbean in a ship captained by his brother before deciding to volunteer as a seaman on a ship commanded by a Norwegian, the son of a missionary.

Thus began a career that found him working on a variety of ships in England and Europe before moving to America in 1911. He worked his way through the ranks while at the same time educating himself at the Swansea Nautical School in Wales, and later obtained a master's license in the United States with a perfect score. Mulzac held two diplomas and master's papers for some twenty years before he was given his own ship and gained the distinction of being the first black person to command an American merchant ship. That ship was the Booker T. Washington, named after the famous black American who founded the Tuskegee Institute. The launching of the Booker T. was a much celebrated occasion that highlighted a performance by the famous black contralto, Marion Anderson.

Mulzac's achievement came after a long struggle against racial discrimination. Despite his qualifications and experience, for a long period of time he was only able to receive work as a steward and chief cook. When given command of the Booker T. Washington in 1942, the intention was to put him in charge of what would have been a Jim Crow ship. He refused and demanded an integrated crew, which he finally got. Under Mulzac the Booker T. Washington became a model ship with union meetings, educational activities, and fund-raising for a variety of causes being held on board.

Despite his war service, Mulzac was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for his membership in a number of organizations, among them the Council for West Indian Federation. He was called before a House Committee and questioned about his political beliefs and associations. He had been involved with Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and actually commanded the Yarmouth, one of the ships in Garvey's Black Star Line until the collapse of that enterprise. He involved himself in other Pan-African movements and tried unsuccessfully for political office at the borough level as a member of the American Labour Party.

After retirement from active service in the Merchant Marine and still subjected to racism, he returned to St. Vincent. He died during a brief visit to the United States at age eighty-four. Hugh Mulzac is one of a select group slated for National Hero status in the country of his birth. He has so far had one of the country's Coast Guard ships, the Hugh Mulzac, named after him.