From his birth to a share cropper family in the cotton fields of Mississippi to the unrest in Chicago and New York during the depression; James Yates's experience with labor protest and union organizing shaped his vision of freedom and led to his decision to fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Approximately 100 Blacks were among the 3;200 volunteers from the US that formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade; the first non-Jim Crow military organization in US history. Yates describes Oliver Law; the first Black commander of a US military unit; Paul Robeson; Langston Hughes; who Yates drove to the front; and nurse Salaria Key O'Reilly. Yates makes cogent connections between fascism and racism. James Yates returned to the US after having been wounded in the Spanish Civil War. He will be remembered for his active role in the struggle for freedom. James Yates died in January; 1994. The Jimmy Yates Award is presented annually to a short story writer by the Molasses Pond Writers Workshop in Franklin; Maine.
#3165171 in Books Butternut n Blue 1996-07Original language:English 9.25 x 6.75 x .75l; #File Name: 0935523502214 pages
Review
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Book DescriptionBy A CustomerThe savage fighting that burned across the rolling terrain of central Adams County; Pennsylvania; during the first three days of July 1863; has frequently been recounted by participants in conflicting ways. Though the veterans are long gone; many of the debates continue to captivate Gettysburg enthusiasts. One such little-described polemic involved men of Colonel Samuel Sprigg Carroll's Second Corps brigade; the Gibraltar Brigade; a "western" unit composed of regiments from Ohio; West Virginia and Indiana. The hard-bitten veterans of the Gibraltar Brigade had little time to relax after their hard march to Gettysburg. Early in the evening of July 2; three of Carroll's regiments were ordered from where they lay near Ziegler's Grove toward East Cemetery Hill which was under Confederate assault. The tired Ohioans; Indianians and West Virginians arrived at the Evergreen Cemetery Gate on the Baltimore Pike to find part of General Howard's Eleventh Corps line retreating up the east slope of the hill. The fiery Carroll deployed his men into line of battle and drove more than 50 Confederates from Captain R. Bruce Ricketts' Pennsylvania battery thereby securing this part of the Federal line. Or so it seemed; for unbeknown to those involved; disparate opinions of what actually happened in the July 2 gloom were soon to erupt into a sometimes caustic feud that pitted Second Corps veterans against General Howard's men and partisans. The dispute over who actually saved the Federal batteries on East Cemetery Hill commenced before the start of the Spring 1864 Campaign and endured into the twentieth century. Though such debates as the Meade-Sickles and Hancock-Howard controversies have received extensive coverage; little has been written on the Carroll-Howard quarrel. More than anything else; the protracted disagreement between the Second and Eleventh Corps veterans recounted in The Gibraltar Brigade on East Cemetery Hill reveals how comrades in battle could differ on specifics of that fighting and for such a long time. It also demonstrates how fervently these veterans contended for the honor of their regiments and corps.
