Swansea Museum

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Black History Month: Ralph Waldo Ellison

For Black History Month, Swansea Museum will be looking back to WW2.  A number of Americans were stationed in Swansea and the surrounding area. We will be considering three Black Americans who were in Swansea for just a short period but who would become historically significant.

Ralph Waldo Ellison (1913 – 1994)

In 1953, Ralph Ellison won the US National Book Award for fiction for his novel Invisible Man, one of the key texts in African American culture.  The book is about the alienation of being a Black man in post war America.

He was born in 1913 in Oklahoma. In 1933 he was accepted into the prestigious Tuskegee Institute, the all Black university set up by Booker T. Washington, the name given to the Liberty Ship captained by Hugh Mulzac.

In 1936 he moved to New York and lived at Harlem YMCA on 135th Street, the centre of African American Culture during this period.

Ralph Ellison was stationed in Swansea during WW2.  A cook with the merchant marine, he served on a few Liberty Ships supplying the Normandy beach head and the subsequent battle for Europe. 

Ellison wrote three short stories based in Swansea during 1944, in a Strange Country, The Red Cross at Morriston Hospital and A Storm of Blizzard Proportions. The latter two were never published but In a Strange Country appears in a book, Flying Home and Other Stories published in 1998.

Some academics believe that Invisible Man may be influenced and the idea originated from In a Strange Country. In the short story (possibly based on an actual incident in Swansea), the character named Parker, who is Black comes ashore at Swansea and soon after is mugged and assaulted by three white US soldiers.  Parker is rescued by some locals, who take him to a club where a choir is practising. The choir sing the Welsh National Anthem, The British National Anthem, the Internationale and as they have an American guest, The Star Spangled Banner.

Parker finds himself in a swirl of emotional contradictions, particularly when they sing The Star Spangled Banner, as a Black man fighting for his country but treated as a second class citizen and who most likely would not be able to visit a similar members club back in the US.

The short story explores some of the themes that later won him the US National Book Award with Invisible Man.

Ralph Ellison was eventually admitted to the American Academy of Arts and letters and received two Presidential Awards, one from Lyndon Johnson and one from Ronald Reagan.

Ralph Ellison died in 1994 aged 81

For further information on Ralph Ellison, there is an excellent chapter in Black Skin, Blue Books – African Americans in Wales 1845 – 1945.  By Daniel G Williams, Swansea University. Published by University of Wales Press. 2012

Postscript

Searching for images to post with these blogs, I was aware that the museum had photographs taken by Great Western of ships and supplies arriving from the United States at Swansea Docks.

On looking through the two albums I found pictures of the cargo hold of the Sun Yat Set. The text with the photographs explain that the ship was actually on route to Liverpool but was diverted to Swansea. The cargo included 1,520 tons of steel, 278 vehicles, 100 landing craft and 4,927 tons of aviation spirit in drums. It would appear the drums of aviation fuel had been damaged during the crossing. Hence the diversion for special arrangements for handling the aviation spirit at Swansea.

Whilst searching for Great Western I also realised that the museum holds a ledger of all arrivals and departures from 1940 to 1945.  The Sun Yat Set was part of convoy HX 273 and arrived in Swansea on the 16th January 1944. It departed on the 5th February heading towards Belfast to join convoy ON 203 sailing back to New York.

Previous sources indicate that Ralph Ellison was sailing back and fore between Swansea and the United States regularly.  Sources state he served on more than one Liberty Ship, but only his first ship the Sun Yat Sen is named. This ship only docked in Swansea once. Ralph Ellison would have been here for twenty one days and of course this would have been his first experience of another country.  However, if it was not for the damaged aviation fuel Ralph Ellison would have been in Liverpool and for a much shorter period.

Whilst looking through the nearly 10,000 entries for ships arriving and departing Swansea Docks in 1944 and 1945, I also noted a few ships with the name Parker. Ellison names his character Parker in the story. USS Parker a destroyer on escort duty on Atlantic convoy duty in 1943 and early 1944 and a Liberty Ship Theodore Parker, named after a famous abolitionist campaigner, who was quoted by Abraham Lincoln and later Martin Luther King. Neither of these ships were on convoys HX 273 or ON 203. Pure speculation, but I wonder if any of these ships were part of another convoy alongside Sun Yat Sen and hence the name of the character?

Phil Treseder
Learning & Participation Officer

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Black History Month: Reverend Edward Gonzalez Carroll

For Black History Month, Swansea Museum will be looking back to WW2.  A number of Americans were stationed in Swansea and the surrounding area. We will be considering three Black Americans who were in Swansea for just a short period but who would become historically significant.

Reverend Edward Gonzalez Carroll (1910 – 2000)

The Reverend Carroll was a graduate of Columbia University and the Yale School of Divinity.

Carrol was stationed in Swansea with the US Armed Forces in the build up to D Day.  Carroll was a Chaplain to the 95th Engineer Regiment, a Black Regiment based in Swansea, part of the 5th Engineer Special Brigade whose headquarters was at Penllergaer. The Rev Carroll, was not called up, he volunteered, partly due to his concerns about discrimination in the US Army.

The US Army up until 1948 was segregated.  The men of the 95th regiment were all Black with 52 officers all of whom were white apart from Captain Carroll. Prior to arriving in Britain, they helped build the Alaskan Highway 1600 miles long in difficult terrain. Despite being an officer, Captain Carroll was not allowed in the officers’ mess and therefore dined alone.  Following complaints by some of the soldiers the rest of the officers were ordered to allow Captain Carroll to dine with them.

Segregation in the United States was widespread at the time with many bars, cafes, cinemas and hotels segregated into white and non-white. The US Army wanted the British Government to segregate US troops here so that some Black soldiers could only visit certain pubs and cafes but the government refused stating that all American soldiers were welcome in Britain.

The US Army were therefore left to work out their own arrangements for segregation. In some areas of England leave was rotated so that both white and black personnel would not be in local pubs at the same time.  Despite attempts I have not been able to discover any segregation arrangements implemented by the US Army for Swansea.

Segregation in the United States finally ended following a long successful campaign by the Civil Rights Movement. This movement in the 1950/60s was led by Martin Luther King who was assassinated in 1968.

Martin Luther King took some inspiration from the independence movement in India led by Ghandi who advocated non-violent protest. It was the Rev Edward Carroll and another Black preacher Howard Thurman who first met Ghandi in India in 1935 to discuss the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, the trip being sponsored by the United States YMCA.

Howard Thurman would later become a Chaplain and professor of Spiritual Discipline and Resources at Boston University where Martin Luther King Jnr studied.  Thurman become a friend of the family and he urged King to adopt nonviolent protest.

Following the war, Carroll presided over a few churches in New York before moving to Baltimore. He retained his connection with the YMCA becoming Associate Secretary of the National Student YMCA.

In 1972 he was elected a Bishop of the United Methodist Church and died in the year 2000.

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Black History Month: Hugh Nathaniel Mulzac (1886 – 1971)

For Black History Month, Swansea Museum will be looking back to WW2.  A number of Americans were stationed in Swansea and the surrounding area. We will be considering three Black Americans who were in Swansea for just a short period but who would become historically significant.

Hugh Nathaniel Mulzac (1886 – 1971)

Hugh Mulzac was the first African American to be awarded a US Master Mariner Certificate. This is the qualification required to be a ship captain.

Captain Mulzac and his crew in England after the maiden voyage of the SS Booker T Washington.

Hugh Mulzac was born on the Island of St Vincent and the Grenadines, West Indies in 1886.

Following High School he began working on British merchant ships and was subsequently sent to the Nautical Training College here in Swansea where he gained his Mates certificate.  In 1918 he emigrated to the United States where he completed his qualification as a Master Mariner. He initially served as an officer on the SS Yarmouth, a Black Star Line ship.

The Black Star Line was set up by Marcus Carvey in 1919. Marcus Carvey was also the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.  The aim was to provide non exploitative jobs.

Mulzac for some reason fell out with Marcus Carvey and left in 1922. Due to racial discrimination, he could only find work as a Steward despite his skills qualifications and experience. This situation continued for the next twenty years.

In 1942 however he was offered command of the Liberty Ship SS booker T. Washington, the first Liberty Ship to be named after an African American.  Booker T. Washington was a notable educator, orator and advisor to several US Presidents.

Mulzac was very much a man of principle.  When the US Maritime Commission offered him the Captaincy, he initially refused, as it was a Black segregated crew. He stated at the time, that under no circumstances would he command a “Jim Crow”. (Jim Crow, being a slang term for segregation laws in the United States). The US Maritime Commission relented and Mulzac became the first Black captain of an integrated crew.

During WW2 the SS Booker T. Washington transported 18,000 troops and supplies to Europe.  It is likely that at some point, Mulzac would have again visited Swansea as one of the key ports for importing US supplies and supplying the Normandy beach head. Following WW2 Mulzac again found he could not secure a command of a private commercial ship. Not only due to discrimination but also partly due to his politics.

Mulzac joined and stood for the American Labour Party which many Americans considered to be a communist organisation. At the height of the Cold War and the McCarthy era, he found himself blacklisted.  The US government also revoked his seaman’s papers and licences. Mulzac took the Government to court and finally secured his licenses back in 1960.

One of his daughters would also take up politics. Una Mulzac was the founder of a prominent political and Black power orientated bookshop in Harlem.

Hugh Mulzac died in New York in 1971, aged 84