African Americans in the Spanish Civil War: Christopher Brooks Research Files
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Abstract
Christopher Brooks was a graduate student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who in 1993 began research on a thesis project chronicling African Americans who fought on the side of the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War. As part of that research, he sent out survey forms, along with a request for any additional information, to other surviving volunteers of that struggle who had fought in either American, British or Canadian brigades. He hoped that their memories of specific African-American fighters, including their military and political histories and any other personal details, would add greater depth to the portraits already published in the volume, edited by Danny Duncan Collum and researched by Victor Berch, entitled African Americans in the Spanish Civil War: "This Ain't Ethiopia but It'll Do" (G.K. Hall and Co., 1992). This collection consists of descriptive material on the project and responses from the veterans (and spouses) who replied.
Historical/Biographical Note
Christopher T. Brooks was a graduate student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who planned to write a thesis on African Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Having read the work of Danny Collum and Victor A. Berch, African Americans in the Spanish Civil War: "This Ain't Ethiopia but It'll Do," published under the auspices of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives in 1992, he felt that there was still more information that could be collected concerning the lives and activities of these particular volunteers. In 1993, in an effort to obtain this information, he obtained lists of surviving American, British and Canadian volunteers of that conflict from veterans' organizations in each of these nations, hoping he would be able to jog their memories further for recollections of particular African-American fighters.
Brooks then sent out several general survey forms to each volunteer on these lists, along with requests for additional specific information regarding their recollections of African-American volunteers. He kept the originals and also made copies of all replies received, including research-related correspondence and enclosed photographs, compiling them into the two series of folders making up this collection. There is no evidence in the collection of what the ultimate product of this research was. At this writing Brooks is working on a comprehensive biographical database of all U.S. volunteers.
Arrangement
Series I contains separate tables of contents and indexes for each of the three national groups of volunteers, whose responses to Brooks' queries are arranged alphabetically within one folder for each nation. Series II is arranged alphabetically for all the volunteers who replied, regardless of national background.
The files are grouped into 2 series:
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- I. National Files and General Materials
- II. Individual Biographical Files
Scope and Content Note
Series I: National Files and General Materials, consists of a general introduction to the project for the veterans organizations and volunteers that Brooks contacted, along with photocopies of their responses. In each case, the volunteers (or in some cases, spouses of volunteers) that Brooks contacted were not themselves African Americans; they were simply asked to contribute their memories or recollections of any African Americans they (or their spouses) encountered in Spain or knew thereafter. There are two folders for each nation: the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada, followed by two folders containing related reference materials, mostly general correspondence, photocopies of photos of particular African-American volunteers, and reference photos.
The two folders per nation are each arranged in the same way: the first smaller folder contains a table of contents listing each of the volunteers successfully contacted and the page numbers for their response. It also indicates which veterans Brooks was unable to contact by mail, or whom he reached in other ways (telephone or personal contacts are sometimes mentioned, but transcripts of these are not included in the collection). Finally, the U.S and British introductory folders contain an "Index to African American Volunteers." The second national folder contains photocopies of the volunteers' responses (the originals are in Series II). Particularly useful here are the indexes to African-American volunteers mentioned by Brooks' respondents.
Series II: Individual Biographical Files, contains the originals of the responses that Brooks received, in this case with a separate folder for each respondent, again arranged alphabetically, and not separated by national brigade. The responses often consist solely of short answers on the questionnaire form sent by Brooks, but several volunteers (including Steve Nelson, Hilda Roberts and Bill Wheeler) added rather lengthy personal letters, with detailed memories and vignettes. Others, such as Michalakis Economides, attached historical materials, concerning either themselves or other volunteers that they knew.
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Access Restrictions
Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives for more information and to schedule an appointment, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Use Restrictions
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), were transferred to New York University in November 2000 by the ALBA Board of Governors. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. For more information, contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Collection name; Collection number; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.
Provenance
The collection African-Americans in the Spanish Civil War: Christopher Brooks Research Files came to New York University in January 2001 as part of the original acquisition of ALBA collections, formerly housed at Brandeis University.
