Background
Frank Rudolph Crosswaith was born on July 16, 1892 in Frederiksted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, United States. He was the son of William Ignatius Crosswaith, a painter, and Anne Eliza.
Frank Rudolph Crosswaith was born on July 16, 1892 in Frederiksted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, United States. He was the son of William Ignatius Crosswaith, a painter, and Anne Eliza.
He attended night schools. In 1918 he was graduated from the Rand School of Social Science.
He began working at age thirteen, came to the United States in 1910, and spent several years in the navy as a messboy.
Crosswaith claimed that he had always been interested in the downtrodden of the world because of the plight of his people in the Virgin Islands.
The Rand School, founded in 1906 as a socialist institution, provided nurture and focus for his radicalism; he was also inspired by the idealism of Eugene V. Debs. In Harlem at that time there was a group of radical blacks, many of them socialists, who styled themselves as the vanguard of the "New Negro"--a black who no longer tolerated capitalist exploitation of black workers and the old, accommodating black leadership. It was within this milieu that Crosswaith came to political maturity, attaining considerable organizational skills. He developed an enduring belief that racism was primarily the result of job competition and would be eliminated only when all workers joined unions able to protect their common interests. In 1920 Crosswaith joined A. Philip Randolph and other radicals in the Friends of Negro Freedom (FNF), an all-black civil rights organization more militant than other existing ones; they hoped to educate blacks in union principles and organize independent black unions where white exclusion made it necessary. Except for its role in organizing attacks on Marcus Garvey in the early 1920's, the FNF was little more than an intellectual forum for New York's black socialists.
By 1925, Crosswaith had helped organize tenants and elevator operators and constructors. He also lectured for the Socialist party and the League for Industrial Democracy, traveling widely and earning the reputation as the "Negro Debs" because of his fiery speeches in behalf of the rights of workers.
He was the unsuccessful Socialist party candidate for several offices. In mid-1925, with the encouragement of the Urban League, socialist unions, and the American Fund for Public Service, Crosswaith created the Trade Union Committee for Organizing Negro Workers (TUCONW). Its aim was to bring about unionization of unorganized black workers in New York City and to encourage white-dominated unions to accept them. As the executive secretary of TUCONW, the task of overcoming black indifference, white animosity, and inadequate funds fell to Crosswaith. He made a few black placements in exclusionary unions, but an attempt to organize exploited laundry workers failed. The organization died out within a year, partly because white unions failed to provide promised support.
In 1925 Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), and while Crosswaith was still serving as executive secretary of TUCONW, he became a special assistant to the BSCP; in 1926 he was appointed its first professional organizer. But Crosswaith became the victim of rank-and-file resentment of New Yorkers' domination of the headquarters. In addition, he came under fire from those who thought he spent too much time on public relations and too little time organizing porters. The feuding finally resulted in his being fired in late 1928. After leaving the BSCP, Crosswaith became a general organizer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), a position he held for the rest of his career. During the 1930's he continued to be a candidate for various offices on the Socialist party ticket.
He was chairman of the Negro Labor Committee (NLC) for many years to come. Unlike the earlier TUCONW, the NLC endured in Harlem because the Great Depression and the National Industrial Recovery Act created an atmosphere in which union officials became more committed to organizing black workers. It was as head of the NLC that Crosswaith joined with Randolph in the March on Washington Committee in 1941. In 1946 the NLC claimed that it had changed Harlem "from a community of scabs to a community of labor conscious workers. " In the late 1930's Crosswaith joined the American Labor party (ALP).
He remained in the Socialist party until 1941, when he left the party over its stand against American involvement in the European war. In 1941 he became a founding member of the anti-Communist Union for Democratic Action and was a leader of the liberal right wing of the ALP. In 1944 he joined the anti-Communist exodus from the ALP to create the Liberal party, becoming a member of its state executive board. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed him to the New York City Housing Authority in 1942, a post he held for many years. Crosswaith's anti-Communism became even more strident as the cold war developed. In 1952 representatives from seventy-five trade unions met to expand the NLC into a national organization, the Negro Labor Committee, U. S. A. , with Crosswaith as chairman. The committee pledged to combat Communist efforts among blacks and to continue the unionization of black workers. Long before his death Crosswaith had become part of the liberal and labor establishments; yet he never stopped demanding equal rights and opportunities for blacks.
He died in New York City.
In January 1915 he married Alma E. Besard of Charleston, South Carolina; they had three children.