Joseph Swarns

Oct. 28, 2024 in Staten Island after a long battle with heart disease. As a teenager,

he moved north during the Great Migration to New York City where he built a

career in real estate and nurtured a community that will mourn his intellect, his

insatiable curiosity, his wit, his love of family and his commitment to battling

injustice. He was 86 years old.

Joseph was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on May 22, 1938. His mother,

Ruth Asbury Gwynn, also had two older boys, Bill and Charles, and a daughter,

Ruth, who died young. Joseph’s biological father was Jesse Saddler. But his

stepfather, Gilbert Gwynn, who joined the family when Joseph was a young boy,

was the true father figure in his life.

Ruth and Gilbert instilled in their youngest son the importance of education and

activism. Ruth made sure that he attended lectures and performances by visiting

notables, including Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. Gilbert, who played for

the Negro Leagues and managed a local team known as the Winston-Salem Pond

Giants, brought Joseph along as he and other union workers rallied support for a

1947 strike against the tobacco factory, RJ Reynolds.

The strike resulted in higher wages for the mostly Black workforce. But the

tobacco giant ultimately beat back the union, which was viewed with suspicion in

some circles because of the support it received from white Communist organizers.

Joseph’s parents were blacklisted because of their union activities. They lost their

jobs at the factory and were forced to move north. But Joseph never forgot the

experience of riding around town with his father, drumming up support for the

strike. That early experience kindled within him an understanding of the

importance of protest, a keen interest in socialism and a belief in the power and

possibility of interracial coalitions among working people.

The family moved first to Brooklyn, where Joseph attended the Manual Training

High School, later renamed John Jay, and fell in love with math and the Brooklyn

Dodgers. (He never forgave them for leaving New York.) They then moved on to

Queens, where his parents ultimately settled in St. Albans. After high school,

Joseph was accepted to New York University, but he couldn’t afford the tuition. So

he attended the City College of New York until he was accepted at Howard

University and moved to Washington, D.C.

At Howard, Joseph dived into a rigorous course of study that included physics and

calculus and met the band of brothers – Jerry Norris, Peter Bailey, Walter Delagel,

Joe Abear – who would accompany him for the rest of his life. He was absorbed by

the civil rights movement and joined the crowds that celebrated Fidel Castro’s visit

to the United States in 1959. He was thrilled to shake the Cuban revolutionary’s

hand.

It was through Jerry Norris that he met Lucille Smith, a pretty young woman from

the Bahamas, who had grown up in Staten Island and was attending DC Teachers

College. They fell in love. He called her “Sunshine” and showered her with yellow

roses. They married on May 2, 1964.

Joseph and Lucille moved back to New York, first to Springfield Gardens, Queens,

where they bought a house close to Joseph’s parents and had two daughters,

Rachel and Christina. Then, in the 1970s, they moved to Staten Island where

Lucille’s mother and many of her siblings still lived. It was there that they had

their third daughter, Jessica. Joseph worked for many years as a salesman for

Consolidated Waters, an air conditioning company, then branched out as an

entrepreneur, running two laundromats, one in Brooklyn and the other in Queens.

He moved on to real estate and would spend the rest of his career as a commercial

real estate broker at V.I.P. Real Estate in Staten Island.

All the while, he held on to his passion for politics and activism. He marched in

protests and supported the campaigns of progressive candidates, including Bernie

Sanders, who he hoped would become the first socialist president of the United

States. An avid reader, Joseph followed politics and world events in the New York

Times and the Staten Island Advance and on WBAI, his favorite public radio

station. And he and his wife instilled their passion for social change and racial

justice in their three children.

Joseph was a complex man who had many struggles during his life. But throughout

them all, he held on to his family. He embraced his wife’s sprawling clan and

loved hosting family barbecues and holiday dinners. He opened his home to

relatives in need and loved and supported his mother and father for as long as they

lived. He loved Dickens and paddleball, swimming and photography. (As a young

man, he set up a dark room in the basement where he developed hundreds of black

and white photos.) As an older man, he loved daily walks, the theater and live

concerts and tinkering on and rebuilding his computers.

In retirement, he and Lucille joined the NAACP in Staten Island, where they

focused on racial justice and improving the lives of underprivileged children. He

enjoyed traveling with his family to Martha’s Vineyard, South Africa, Nassau,

Paris (to celebrate Christina’s 50th birthday) and Ethiopia (to bring home his

beloved granddaughter, Amina.) He loved spending time with his grandchildren,

took pride in their achievements and measured their growth – literally! – with

marks on the wall to show how tall they were.

Joseph is survived by his wife, Lucille; his daughters, Rachel, Christina and

Jessica; his son-in-law, Henri Cauvin; his grandchildren, Gianna, Gabriel, Julian

and Amina; and many beloved relatives and friends. He lived a full life and was –

and always will be – greatly loved.