Captain Hugh N. Mulzac

In 1996 we honored Captain Hugh N. Mulzac (1886-1971). Captain Mulzac was born in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. His mother was an accomplished pianist and a woman of pure African descent; Hugh's father, Richard Mulzac, was a mulatto planter and a builder of whaling ships and schooners. Hugh’s grandfather, Charles Malzac, was a white man and a native of St. Kitts, West indies.

Mulzac's life at sea started immediately after high school when he served on British schooners. He was sent to Swansea Nautical College in Wales to train for his ship masters license. In 1918, Hugh Mulzac emigrated to the United States. Within two years he had earned his shipping master's certificate, the first ever issued to an African American. He joined with Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and served as a Captain on the SS Yarmouth of the Black Star Line. However, disagreements with the UNIA lead to his resignation in 1921. 

For the next two decades, the only shipboard work Mulzac could get was in the steward's departments on several shipping lines. In 1942, Mulzac was offered command of the SS Booker T. Washington, the first Liberty ship to be named after an African-American. He refused at first because the crew was to be all black. He insisted on an integrated crew, stating, "Under no circumstances will I command a Jim Crow", and the authorities relented. With this, he became famous for being the first ever black captain, the first black man to obtain a ships masters license and the first black man ever to command a fully integrated vessel. Under his command, over 18,000 troops were transported around the world, and additionally carrying vital war supplies such as tanks, aircraft and ammunition to the European front.

Captain Hugh Mulzac also played a role in the National Maritime Union. The Union included a clause that stipulated that there should be no discrimination based on color, race, political creed, religion, or national origin.

After the war, Mulzac could not regain a position as captain. 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 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 only able to find work as a night mate.