Slight, grizzled Hugh Mulzac, ex-seaman, ex-mess boy, was catapulted front & 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...
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