Black soldier picture emerges from the Spanish Civil War

A picture has come to light of a black American soldier who was involved in the Spanish Civil War. The invisibility of black people in history continues in so many areas, that is until evidence like this emerges. Sometimes their absence from films depicting events is deliberate, as was the case of a fairly recent account of Iwo Jima.
The matter of awareness has been raised a notch higher by the fact of Barack Obama as President of the United States. A portrait of the soldier will be presented to him when he visits Spain shortly.
No one knows who the so;dier is: ” ‘All we know is that he arrived with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of American volunteers and that he died in the battle at Brunete [in July 1937],’ said Sergi Centelles, whose father, Agustí, took the picture.” (Source Guardian).


“The mix of races in the International Brigades saw attempts made to observe a degree of racial equality otherwise unseen in western armies in the 1930s.
‘We know there were quite a few African American volunteers and that many were treated badly when they went home, as people thought they were communists,’ said Sergi Centelles.”

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