Revels Cayton
Union organizer and civil rights activist.
Born in 1907 to Susie Revels Cayton and Horace Cayton, Sr., Revels Cayton was a civil rights leader in Seattle and California.[1][2]
He attended the University of Washington, but left early due to the Great Depression.
Revels Cayton was particularly active in 1934; during that year he joined the Northwest District of the Community Party in 1934, organized the Communist Party's Seattle chapter of the League of Stuggle for Negro Rights, and participated in the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike in San Francisco.[1][3] In 1940 he filed a discrimination suit against a San Francisco restaurant that refused service to him, Paul Robeson, and five others.[2] In 1946 he was the executive secretary of the National Negro Congress when it petitioned the UN Director-General to recognize the "denial of constitutional rights to 13,000,000 U.S. Negroes."[2]
In 1960 he was the first manager of St. Francis Square, a housing development in San Francisco built by the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and the Pacific Maritime Association.[3] Later he became the deputy director of the San Francisco Housing Authority and deputy mayor for social programs.[3]
Revels Cayton died on Saturday, November 4, 1995, in San Francisco, California.[2]
References
- ^ a b "Who's Who in Communist Party". depts.washington.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
- ^ a b c d "Revels Cayton (1907-1995) • BlackPast". BlackPast. 2007-02-12. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
- ^ a b c "OBITUARY -- Revels Cayton". SFGate. 1995-11-06. Retrieved 2019-03-01.