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FREEDOMWAYS               SECOND QUARTER 1972

I again suggest that the population of our sports readers who will find enjoyment from this book are the naive and bigoted citizens who still look upon the Black sports gladiators in our professional arenas, as nimble-footed, dumb, light-headed people. This book is so devastatingly inaccurate and biased that the picture of shuffling clowns, scratching their heads, carrying on endless conversations about playing basketball, screwing and gambling; and chiefly about Black stars who are making $50,000 to $150,000 per year doesn't add up.
The author keeps these individuals year after year of their careers, in the same atmosphere, in the same character, that of being confused, being put upon, not being considered on the same intellectual and cultural plane with their white counterparts. And the author continues to paint the great warm human beings, as absurd comics, and people with inferiority complexes, fighting "whitey" at every path of the way, and always, in their own cliques.
Connie Hawkins is a man. Connie Hawkins is a great man. The system in the ghetto of his childhood could not destroy him. The shopworn system of college recruiting could not ruin him. The temptations of big time gamblers of the American sports world could not ruin him. The devastating chicanery of the front offices of many professional basketball teams could not ruin him. The story, if there is a story in this book, is how Connie Hawkins had faith. He had friends and through the good graces of people who believed in him and knew that the system had done him wrong, they saw fit to lead this giant away from despair and into an avenue of hope and with this chance he has succeeded. 

Marshall C. Brown, Sr.


THE STORY OF THE FIRST BLACK MASTER OF A U.S. SHIP

A STAR TO STEER BY. By Capt. Hugh N. Mulzac. International Publishers, New York. $1.50 (paperback) new edition.

IF YOU like your sea yarns so real you can feel the roll of the ship. hear the roar of the sea in howling gales and taste salt spray, A Star to Steer By is your book. It is stronger than any fiction of a Conrad or London and every word is true.
This is the life story of the best known sea captain of World War II, Hugh Mulzac (1886-1971), skipper of the Liberty ship Booker

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BOOK REVIEW             KASBOHM

T. Washington, first Black master of a U.S. ship. We live with the Captain from his youth on fine sailing ships (with food one wouldn't feed to his dog) to his getting first, his Board of Trade (British) license as Mate and later his U.S. Master's license.
Twenty-four years of frustration and hardship were to elapse before he achieved his goals as ship's Master.
Great names flow through the pages of this book: Capt. Mulzac was Chief Mate of the S.S. Frederick Douglass of Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line; Ferdinand Smith (a Black militant) one of the founders of the National Maritime Union (and its first Secretary); Al Lannon, waterfront organizer, and other greats of his time, they are all here.
That a person so well qualified (as Mulzac was to demonstrate) as a ship's Master was forced to eke out a living for himself and his family as a ship's cook (in the starvation Bull Line at that), Chief Steward and as a shore side paper hanger, may seem unbelievable to some but for any Black in White America that's how it is.
He tells us that his proudest moment came when he stood on the bridge of the Booker T. Washington as Master as she headed into the Pacific through the San Pedro breakwater. But surely his finest moment came when he told the War Shipping Administration officials that he would not command a jim-crow ship. "This is what this war is all about-I'll have no trouble getting a crew, of black, white or what have you." Twenty-four long years of struggle stood in the balance but he won. The Booker T. was integrated.
To America's shame and the Captain's credit he was screened from the sea, with several thousand other militant trade unionists, as a "dangerous subversive" by the Coast Guard. The shipowners finally got rid of him. He was on the beach for good.
Leaving the sea did not mean the end for Mulzac. The years that followed make interesting reading, and many present day Civil Rights activists will be happy to know that Hugh Mulzac was among the earliest. He served as Chairman of the Seamen's Defense Committee which ended political screening on the waterfront. Screening of another sort still remains-there have been no Black U.S. sea captains since Mulzac and the Booker T. were dumped 25 years ago.
A Star to Steer By closes with a serious and beautiful paragraph addressed to the youth: "Choose sides early in life, study and prepare yourself for the struggle ahead." Captain Mulzac never lost confidence in the youth of today; he knew tomorrow would be theirs and was sure they would meet the challenge.

Henry B. Kasbohm

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-17 19:24:41