Coming from a country that in the 1930s was already quite multicultural, the Americans who fought in Spain were from a variety of socioeconomic classes and from different (ethnic) backgrounds. Most of them were white working class men with strong communist convictions, but recent studies are drawing attention to the women and African Americans who went overseas. Although only 60 women and about 85 African Americans joined out of a total of 2,800 U.S. volunteers, the experience of these minorities needs to be both acknowledged and studied, and gives us a unique insight into the gender and race dynamics at play during the war.
Race
In 1992 Danny Duncan published what is today the only book to explore the role of African Americans in the Spanish Civil War. For its subtitle, recognizing the enormous influence that this event had on these volunteers he chose This Ain’t Ethiopia but it’ll Do. Just a year before the war in Spain, in 1935, Mussolini had invaded Ethiopia, one of the few African countries that was still free from colonial power. Hundreds of African Americans unsuccessfully tried to join the fight against Italian fascism. But when in 1936 Franco invaded the Spanish peninsula with the Army of Africa and the support of Hitler and Mussolini, many of them saw a new opportunity to fight the combined powers of fascism and decided to travel to Spain.
The roles of the 85 African Americans volunteers varied from political officials such as Harry Haywood, to ambulance drivers such as James Yates. Perhaps the most well-known was Oliver Law, the first African American to lead an integrated military force a decade before the U.S. army would effectively end segregation. Born in 1900, Law had first joined the U.S. military in 1919 and, when the Great Depression forced him to find another job, joined the Works Progress Administration in Chicago, where he became a Communist. Law was one of the first volunteers to arrive to Spain, where his previous military experience made him Commander of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (ALB). On the fourth day of the Battle of Brunete campaign, Law was killed in action. Fifty years later the mayor of Chicago recognized his anti-fascist and international effort in Spain making November 21st the “Oliver Law and Abraham Lincoln Brigade Day”. What Law experienced and could not voice would be later expressed by other African Americans who fought in Spain. To them, the total lack of racism, advocated by the International Brigades, clashed with the segregation and discrimination they experienced in the U.S. As African American volunteer Tom Page expressed: “Spain was the first time I felt a free man”.
‘Daily World’ article remembering the stories of African American volunteers (© NYU Tamiment Library)
Class
With very few exceptions, the American men and women of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade came from a working class background with a great diversity in professions: journalists, teachers, nurses, steel and factory workers, drivers and even some artists. The majority, over eighty percent, were communists or socialists who had joined the Communist Party USA or the Young Communist League. Although studies tend to focus on the political ideology of these volunteers, it was their cultural and journalistic achievements in times of war that is most eye-catching.
In a time called the Golden Age of Spanish journalism, the XV Brigade also ran various newspapers throughout the war. Most notably is the Volunteer for Liberty, started in 1937 by the original American volunteers and still in print today.
But the archives have much more to offer than just journals; as a testament to the brigade’s presence in Spain are hundreds of poems, drawings, plays and songs. These songs show both the creativity of the American volunteers and their internationalist spirit, adapting Spanish popular songs or lyrics of American productions to fit their own experiences. Examples of this are “Jarama Valley” played to the tune of “Red River Valley” or, a personal favorite, “Viva la Quince Brigada” using the rhythm of the popular Spanish song “Ay Carmela!”
Gender
Gender remains the least explored aspect of the Spanish Civil War. In the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the majority of women volunteered as nurses, meaning they never had – or were allowed to have – direct roles in combat. Although all American women of the International Brigades survived, their stories and personal accounts were, for the most part, silenced and obscured by a predominant masculine narrative. With the exception of Salaria Kea, the only African American woman to participate in the brigade, more research must be done to unveil and recognize the experiences and contribution of these women to the anti-fascist struggle in Spain.
Regardless of their gender, race and class, the American volunteers of the International Brigades embodied the antifascist and international solidarity struggle that unsuccessfully aimed to defeat fascism. Many would later volunteer again to fight the same enemy in World War II, but also inside their own country through activism. Many of them joined the civil rights movement and anti-war protests to name a few. Their stories should inspire today’s and future generations and show the importance of working in solidarity with each other.
Dario Graziano from Spain is a student in Transatlantic Studies at Radboud University. He has previously completed a master in American Studies in the University of Amsterdam and bachelor in History at the University of Zaragoza. During his bachelor years, he also had the chance to study abroad in countries such as the U.S., Italy or Romania, which have made him specially interested in transnational movements and perspectives. His main research interest are the African Americans who fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. Recently, he published a blog about this topic on lavozdelbrigadista.com (in Spanish).
(top image: three milicianes, women soldiers of the Spanish Republican Army – © Bibliothèque nationale de France)
