Black Socialist and Trade Unionist Frank Crosswaith Should Be a Household Name
Dubbed “the Negro Eugene Debs,” Frank Crosswaith was one of the great socialists of the early to mid-20th century. And his message was unwavering: only a vigorous labor movement and democratic socialist policies can deliver a better life for black workers.
Frank Crosswaith, in his role as a New York City Housing Authority board member, presents a key to a couple at the door to their new apartment in the Lincoln Houses in East Harlem, New York, 1947. (La Guardia and Wagner Archives / Flickr)
On a summer night in June 1942, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters leader A. Philip Randolph approached the microphone before an electric crowd of mostly black Harlemites at Madison Square Garden. Eighteen thousand people had jammed into the stadium to attend a mass rally of the March on Washington Movement (MOWM). Organized by Randolph, the gathering highlighted issues of discrimination in defense jobs, segregation, and lynching.
One of the many things attendees were anticipating was the announcement of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s first black appointment to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Many thought it would be Randolph. But instead, a less familiar figure was named: black socialist and labor activist Frank Rudolph Crosswaith.
Crosswaith never attained the same recognition as other early black socialists, such as Randolph or Hubert Harrison. But he played a critical role in building support for both trade unionism and socialism among black Americans and in forging the institutional links between the labor movement and early civil rights organizing.
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