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Soviet Union and Mexico, he added.

Recalling other Black volunteers, Yates cited Burt Jackson, who, "because of his skill, became a mapmaker and worked with the 15th combined American, British, Spanish and Latin American Brigades."

"Then there was Knute Frankson, an auto worker from Detroit and an active trade unionist at the Ford Motor plant there," he continued. "He became a chief mechanic there because of his experience.

"There were others from St. Louis, North and South Carolina, Chicago, New York and Massachussetts. Many came from Ohio and Harlem. Oliver Law became the first Black in U.S. history to command an all-American unit," Yates said. Law, who was born on a ranch in Texas, had been an organizer in the Chicago stockyards. "He served six years in the U.S. (segregated) army, and when he came out he was still a buck private. Yet, when he went to Spain, he commanded an entire battalion." Law died in the Brunete offensive. He was comparable to one of Spain's most decorated heroes, General Modesto, who began the war as a private and ended it as a general.

Yates continued, "Alonzo Watson was the first Black American to die fighting fascism in Spain. Others who lost their lives there were Morris Wickman of Philadelphia, a Communist Party organizer who became a commissar in the war, and Morris Ransom, who was severely wounded and died in a French hospital in 1938."

"There were others, as well, like Sterling Rochester," Yates said. "At the time the war broke out, he was visiting Moscow, and he left immediately for Spain. He was a member of the Communist Party here until the day he died two years ago.

"Salaria Kee, a Black woman, was the only Black nurse in the war and Dr. Arnold B. Donowa, from Harlem, was an oral surgeon. There were also several Black aviators, including James Peck, a celebrated aviation writer an Pat Roosevelt, a commercial pilot," Yates said.

Love, who was wounded three times in three different battles, said proudly, "Every individual soldier had the personal integrity and ability to do whatever had to be done. We never had a good meal and we had the worst conditions, but we had the solidarity of all the progressive forces."

"Before the guns stopped smouldering in Spain, World War II began when Germany invaded Poland, just five months after the end of the Spanish Civil War," Yates said.

"It wasn't a different war; we were fighting the same enemy," said Love. The Abraham Lincoln Battalion volunteered as a group to fight fascism in World War II. "Of course, it was an interracial outfit, and the government turned it down," he pointed out. "When they refused our volunteer unit, each one of us, Black and white, volunteered for the jim crow army individually. Many Blacks were deco-

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rated for their role in World War II." He noted that by the end of World War II, many Spanish Civil War veterans had fought five or six years. The U.S. armed forces remained segregated until some time around the Korean War.

What has happened to the Lincoln vets? According to Yates, roughly half survived and came home; among the Blacks, slightly more than 50 returned. Many have died since then, especially in the last few years.

After WWII, conditions were difficult, and McCarthyite repression took its toll on Black Spanish Civil War veterans especially. As Love put it, "A Lincoln vet was considered a hard-core subversive." Many, he said, had to remain anonymous in order to make a living.

Although the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the fighters against fascism in Spain encompassed many people who were not "communist," Love pointed out, "the ruling class in this country has never forgiven the world communist movement for the leading role it played, for having the foresight and understanding to bring things into focus and lead them in the right direction at the right time."

Both Love and Yates cannot forget the role anti-communism and racism played in fascist Spain, as well as here in the U.S. They are both proud of the role they played in thwarting fascism in Spain and in WWII and in their continuing contribution to ending racism here at home.
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"We didn't know too much about the Spaniards, but we knew that they were fighting against fascism, and that fascism was the enemy of all Black aspirations."

--Vaughn Love

DAILY WORLD, Feb 24, 1979

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