The Harold Thaxter Lumsden collection includes photographs, biographical material, sympathy card, and a pamphlet, We also serve: 10 per cent of a nation working and fighting for victory, related to African American workers in the San Francisco Bay Area during World War II. The collection consists of portrait and family photographs of Harold Thaxter Lumsden, a reproduction of his birth certificate, and his obituary and funeral program.

Black labor leader Harold Thaxter Lumsden (1899-1996) was born on November 24, 1899 in Hagley Gap St. Thomas, Jamaica to Edward Lumsden and Dorcas Thaxter. He was raised in rural Jamaica before moving to Columbia during his teenage years to live with his uncle. In 1916, he went to sea as a ship steward surviving the sinking of two merchant vessels by German U-boats before settling first in Baltimore, Maryland and then in San Francisco, California in 1921. While San Francisco, he began taking classes in 1923 at Lincoln University School of Law while working construction, eventually graduating with a law degree in 1930. Beginning in the 1930s, Lumsden worked as a labor organizer for Union Local 261, unionizing workers at Hamilton Field in 1933 and shipyard workers at Bethlehem Shipyards in Alameda and Hunters Point Naval Shipyards in San Francisco, and as a business agent with Shipyard Laborers Local #886 during World War II. Following the war, he worked as laborer in the shipyards and was elected as Local 886’s union representative to the San Francisco Labor Council and the California Federation of Labor. Lumsden served on the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council and served as recording secretary of the Shipyard Laborers Local #886 until his retirement in 1983.

.1 linear feet (1 box)

Permission to publish from the Harold Thaxter Lumsden Collection must be obtained from the African American Museum & Library at Oakland.

No access restrictions. Collection is open to the public.