The Lincoln Brigade: Newsreel Edition

Presented as a black and white graphic novel. THE LINCOLN BRIGADE tells the true story of 3,000 American volunteers who defied their government and traveled to Spain between 1937 and 1938 to fight fascism during the Spanish Civil War alongside the democratically elected government of the Republic of Spain. These volunteers called themselves The Lincoln Brigade.

This graphic novel focuses on Oliver Law, an African American who fought and protested for worker rights in the 1930s United States. Law and other black American citizens volunteered on their own to go to Spain, and with little training, fighting in the Spanish Civil War against the fascist faction leader, General Francisco Franco. Law would eventually go on to lead the entire Lincoln Brigade army, integrated with both black and white soldiers, into combat. Law’s assumption of command of the brigade took place 10 years before black and white soldiers were integrated in the US Army by President Harry S. Truman in 1948, to say nothing of any military group being led by a soldier of color.