In July 1936, an
attempted military coup to overthrow Spain’s elected government led to civil
war. The Nationalists, under General
Francisco Franco, occupied the western half and southern coast of Spain. Wanting to establish a Fascist state and
restore Spain’s monarchy, they were opposed by the Spanish Republic’s Popular
Front, a loose coalition of Socialists, Anarchists and Communists. Both sides sought foreign aid for their
causes. The Popular Front was aided by
the Soviet Union. Their Nationalist adversaries
were supported by Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Fascist
Italy. Franco’s forces converged on the
capital city of Madrid, but were held back by Republican troops. “No Pasaran!” (They shall not pass!) became
the Republic’s battle cry.
Though the U. S. was neutral during the conflict, hundreds of idealistic young Americans journeyed to Spain and enlisted in two of the Republic’s International Brigades - the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Brigades. These volunteers consisted mostly of Jews opposed to Franco’s Nazi allies, Labor Unionists, and Communists.
Because of the Great Depression, many Americans were disillusioned with the United States government and sought an alternative to the Capitalist economy they suffered under. One alternative was Communism which supported lower-class workers and labor unions as opposed to upper-class private industrialists. African-Americans were attracted to Communism because of its embrace of all workers regardless of skin color, a welcome alternative indeed to the grinding poverty, segregation and lynchings of the Jim Crow era.
Texan Oliver Law was one such African-American who wanted an alternative. Born in West Texas where there were few, if any, employment opportunities for young Black men, he joined the army and was assigned to the all-Black 24th Infantry Regiment - one of the famed Buffalo Regiments. For six years, the 24th guarded the Texas-Mexico border during Mexico’s revolutionary period. Two years prior to Law’s enlistment, they guarded the U.S. Army’s Camp Logan near Houston. After members of the 24th were arrested and beaten by the Houston Police, they marched on Houston, touching of a riot that left 15 white civilians and 5 black soldiers dead. Nineteen members of the 24th were later tried and hanged.
In 1925, Law left the army for employment opportunities in the Midwest, finding work in a cement factory in Bluffton, Indiana. He next moved to Chicago where he found steady work as a cab driver until the Great Depression hit. Unemployed, Law worked intermittently at the docks and at restaurants. Spurred by the Depression era’s activism and radical politics, he joined the Communist Party. Working with Harry Haywood, the head of the U.S. Communist Party’s Negro Department, Law organized a protest over Italy’s occupation of Ethiopia. On August 31, 1935, he spoke to the protesters before the Chicago Police beat and then arrested him.
Still angered over Ethiopia’s occupation, Law was determined to fight Mussolini’s troops, who were fighting in Spain for the Nationalists. He couldn’t travel to Ethiopia and fight them, but he could fight them in Spain. Law joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, where his prior army service proved useful. After crossing the Spanish border from France, he and his fellow Americans hiked to Albacete, the headquarters of the International Brigades. Prior to training, the International Brigade’s Commissar, a paranoid French Communist named Andre Marty, harangued them with Marxist rhetoric. Because of the Republic’s dire situation on the battlefield, the training would be minimal. Government-provided boots were selected from a ragged pile. Used and poorly fitting, they had bloodstains from their prior owners who no longer needed them. Their weapons were mostly antiquated Russian rifles shipped from Mexico and wrapped in Mexico City newspapers- leftovers from the Mexican Revolution. Lincoln volunteers called them “Mexicanskis.” Helmets, if worn, were paper-thin, French Adriens worn during World War I - not very effective against bullets. “It doesn’t protect you from anything at all, except for clods of earth,” recalled civil war writer Ludwig Renn.” The food consisted of chick peas, or gorbanzas, and olive oil. Combined with dirty water, the brigade’s diet often led to chronic diarrhea.
Franco’s forces received more advanced weaponry from Nazi Germany. In addition, they had more experienced troops such as the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Army of Africa, which consisted of ruthless Moorish units from Spanish Morocco. Because of his failure to take Madrid by direct assault, Franco tried to surround it and cut it off from Republican territory. The Nationalists advanced from the north to the Jarama River west of Madrid, heavily defended by the Republicans. Among them was the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which was decimated after a suicidal assault on a well entrenched Nationalist position. Law was commended for his performance and given command of a machine gun company; he was promoted to Captain. Law was now in command of white troops - the first Black officer in U.S. History to do so. He told a reporter, “We came to wipe out the Fascists. Some of us must die doing that job. But we’ll do it here in Spain, maybe stopping Fascism in the United States too, without a great battle there.” When the U.S. military attaché for Spain, Colonel Stephen Fuqua, visited the Lincolns, he encountered Law in his captain’s uniform. “I see you are in a Captain’s uniform,” said Fuqua. Law replied pointedly, “Yes I am, because I am a Captain.” Fuqua responded condescendingly, “I’m sure your people must be proud of you, my boy.” As casualties rose among the Lincolns’ officers, Law was promoted to commander of the brigade. Unfortunately, his command wouldn’t last long. On July 9th, 1937, at the Battle of Brunette, Law was severely wounded. As he was being carried away in a stretcher, he raised his fist and cried out, ”Carry on boys!” He later died and was buried in Spain. His grave has never been found.
Out of the 3,015 Lincoln Brigade volunteers, 681 were killed. In 1939, the International Brigades were withdrawn and sent home after a parade in Barcelona. There was no parade for them back home in the United States. Instead of being lauded for their anti-Fascism, the Americans of the Lincoln Brigade were more often viewed as subversive Communists in league with the Soviet Union. The American public was suspicious of them, shunned them, and subjected them to police surveillance. During the McCarthy Era, they were blacklisted from employment and harassed by the FBI. For the Black members, it was worse; the Jim Crow Era was still in full swing. One former Black Lincoln volunteer recalled, “Spain was the first place that I ever felt like a free man.”
The Nationalists were victorious. Franco became Spain’s dictator until his death in 1975. For his support, Hitler would receive raw materials from Spain for his war machine. In addition, 45,000 Spanish volunteers served in the German Army during its invasion of the Soviet Union.
Though the war receives scant attention today, the Lincoln Brigade’s cause was championed by many famed journalists and authors, including Andre Malraux, George Orwell, Robert Capa, Herbert Matthews, Martha Gellhorn, and Ernest Hemingway, the author of the classic Spanish Civil War novel, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
