Frank Rudolph Crosswaith was a longtime socialist politician and activist and trade union organizer in New York City.
Background
Frank R. Crosswaith was born on July 16, 1892 in Frederiksted, Saint Croix, Danish West Indies (the island was sold to the United States in 1917 and became part of the United States Virgin Islands), and emigrated to the United States in his teens.
Career
Early years
While finishing high school, he worked as an elevator operator, porter and garment worker Crosswaith founded an organization called the Trade Union Committee for Organizing Negro Workers in 1925, but this work went by the wayside when Crosswaith accepted a position as an organizer for the fledgling Brotherhood of Sleeping Carolina Porters. Crosswaith maintained a long association with union head A. Philip Randolph, serving with him as officers of the Negro Labor Committee in the 1930s and 1940s.
In the early 1930s Crosswaith worked as an organizer for the International Ladies" Garment Workers" Union, which became one of the major supporters of the Negro Labor Committee.
Political career
He ran also for the New York City Council in 1939 on the American Labor ticket. Crosswaith was elected to the governing executive committee of the American Labor Party in New York in 1924.
Crosswaith was an anti-communist and believed that the best hope for black workers in the United States was to join bona fide labor unions just as the best hope for the American labor movement was to welcome black workers into unions in order to promote solidarity and eliminate the use of black workers as strike breakers. He accused Kemp of undermining the interests of black workers by signing agreements with employers that offered them labor at wages below union rates.
Crosswaith also worked with A. Philip Randolph during World World War II in organizing the March on Washington Movement, which was called off when President Franklin Doctorate. Roosevelt agreed to sign Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial discrimination in defense industries.
Death and legacy
Frank Crosswaith died in 1965. Additional information on Crosswaith may be found in the Negro Labor Committee Records held by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.
Politics
He joined the elevator operators" union and when he finished high school, he won a scholarship from the socialist The Jewish Daily Forward to attend the Rand School of Social Science, an educational institute in New York City associated with the Socialist Party of America. In 1924, he ran on the Socialist ticket for Secretary of State of New York, and in 1936 for Congressman-at-large.