Reading Langston Hughes’s Wartime Reporting From the Spanish Civil War
- Nov 2, 2022
- 1 min read
By Matthew F. Delmont
From Literary Hub
Several years before the United States officially entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Black Americans were tracking the international spread of fascism closely. News relating to the Spanish Civil War, in particular, was especially captivating for them. In the pages of influential Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender and the Baltimore Afro-American, prominent Black journalists opined on the significance of the war for African Americans.
Among such writers was Langston Hughes. Already internationally renowned at age thirty-five, Hughes followed the news in July 1936, as the Spanish military organized a coup against the popularly elected left-wing Republican government. General Francisco Franco, who viewed Nazi Germany as a model for Spain and went so far as to keep a framed picture of Adolf Hitler on his desk, emerged as the leader of the Nationalist forces. He appealed for military support from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.
