The 20th century was possibly one of the most turbulent in history and, without a doubt, the deadliest. Accepting Eric Hobsbawm’s periodization, between 1914 and 1989 the world witnessed an incredibly diverse range of historical phenomena. The rise, fall and resurgence of bourgeois democracy. The emergence of fascism and communism as alternatives to liberalism. The economic growth of the 1920s, the crash of 1929 and its profound consequences, the golden age of capitalism starting in the 1950s. The rise of political commitment and ideological militancy, which led millions of people to give their lives for ideals. The total war, which took away more than eighty million people. In such a turbulent world, the Spanish Civil War was one of the most iconic events, possibly because it brought together in an extraordinary way many of those great phenomena that crossed the century.
From Mississippi to Madrid. Memoirs of a Black American in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade offers us a tour of many of these phenomena, but above all the Spanish Civil War, through the life experience of James Yates. That is, an African American born in Mississippi in 1906 who was part of the International Brigades that came to Spain from all over the world to defend the Second Republic. This autobiography was first published in English in 1986, five years before the death of its author and protagonist. Now, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza publishes it in Spanish with editing and translation by an American author familiar with this type of autobiographical narratives. In fact, Julián Olivares, professor emeritus of Hispanic studies at the University of Houston, was in charge of editing the memoirs of another combatant in the Spanish civil war, Juan Jesús González Ruiz (Huyendo del fascismo, Foca Ediciones y Distribuciones, 2009).
In a way, the book constitutes a social and cultural history of many of the great events that took place in the 20th century. However, the uniqueness of this work lies in the fact that these events are narrated through a different perspective. The look of a disinherited person who combined his poor social condition with that of being black in a state where racism was at work at full capacity. Throughout ten chapters arranged chronologically, the book offers the reader a window to the past through which to immerse themselves in a deeply magnetic personal story crossed by what Isaiah Berlin called “the most terrible century in Western history.” .
In reality, the ten chapters can be articulated into four different groups with total internal coherence. Chapters one and two give an account of Yates’s youth in Mississippi, between 1906 and 1923. This was the moment in which the protagonist faced racism and discrimination for the first time and began to develop a desire to fight for interests of him. They were the years of the great migration, when thousands of African Americans moved from the southern states to the northern states in search of greater freedom, just as the protagonist himself did, who fled to Chicago in 1923.
The next three address the period 1923-1937 and are key in the vital evolution of the character. In the heat of the tragic consequences of the crisis of 1929 and the rise of fascism in Europe, Yates began his process of politicization. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 led Yates to the conviction that the struggle of black people was, in reality, that of all the oppressed in the world. Therefore, when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, Yates saw in it the opportunity to defend all these causes.
Next, chapters six, seven, eight and nine narrate the protagonist’s experience in the Spanish civil war. These pages constitute a social history of the war throughout which the reader is immersed in the day-to-day life of the conflict, through the eyes of a man who, in the midst of the devastation, feels free and treated with equality. for the first time in his life.
Through different adventures with soldiers of different nationalities and journalists like Hemingway, the reader travels through many of the key scenarios of the conflict for the Republican side, from Brunete to Teruel, passing through Albacete, Valencia or Barcelona. Finally, the last chapter describes Yates’ return to the United States, his immediate reunion with racism, his efforts to get ahead during McCarthyism, and his tireless fight for black freedom now in the heat of the civil rights movement. of the sixties.
In short, an exciting and easy-to-read book that allows Spanish-speaking audiences to enjoy a work halfway between slave narratives, travel books, and the history of the 20th century.
