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Spain was a love affair
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When Hitler, Mussolini and Franco came
with ravaging hordes to conquer Spain
They pinned their hopes on hate and fear
while their great armadas filled the air

The Spaniards resisted this horrendous tide
of terror and greed and genocide
while all the "democratic" states
blockaded Spain to seal its fate

The volunteers joined in a mighty stand
from all the far and distant lands
to guard the valiant heart of Spain
and the liberty and freedom of all mankind

The Black volunteers were where they belonged
where the battle against racism and fascism was going on
to share the burden of freedom's cause
and build the bridge of solidarity and love

This tribut to our glorious fighting men
will last through the ages in time without end
and in the cause we share with them
we embrace the fighters for South African freedom 

--Vaughn Love

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Note: The following is excerpted from an interview by Joe Mitzrahi with Jim Peck in the publication WINGS Vol. II No. 4, August 1972 entitled "The Phantom Brigade." Jim Peck, volunteer in Spain was one of two Black American fighter pilots in the Spanish Republican Army - Jim Peck and Paul Williams.

The Phantom Pilot
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From today's vantage point, no period in time was more significant in the history of military aviation than the Spanish Civil War. In that conflict, combat flying emerged from the classic dogfights of WWI to set a pattern for the massed aerial armadas of WW II. Two months before he signed up for service with the Spanish Republican Air Force, Jim Peck, born in Stoopes Ferry, Pennsylvania, had never considered that his journey into that beleaguered country might have never even reached its closely watched frontier.

First came the voyage to Europe on the liner QUEEN MARY where he met another Black pilot volunteer, Paul Williams, and about 15 volunteers for the international infantry brigades. Also on the QUEEN's passenger list were authors Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman, going to Spain to see for themselves at first hand what their friend, Ernest Hemingway, had been writing about- a truly valid peoples' war, the common man against tyranny.

First stop on the continent was Paris. There they learned that the United States of America had just agreed to an international embargo on arms for Spain. Furthermore, unless they had official business in Spain -- and they did not -- their passports were not good for travel in that country.

Jim had a commercial license but since he and Paul were Black, their careers in flying had been frustrated by a climate of opinion which had limited the number of Negro pilots in the United States to a grand total of five (5) in the year 1930.

The military air services were not less racist. Despite having two years of college at the University of Pittsburgh, where he had done very well, as well as a valid pilot's license, Jim Peck's flying school applications to both the Air Corps and Navy had gained him nothing. Not only was he rejected, but he hadn't even been given the courtesy of a reply.

This type of frozen (racist-J.B.) indifference might have deterred and discouraged a less determined man, but Jim Peck wanted to fly, and when the Spanish Civil War broke out in the summer of 1936, his opportunity to gain combat military experience presented itself.

The opening air battles of the war, as haphazard and limited as they were, soon decimated both Franco's and the Republic's air forces

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