by Eric J. Brock, Shreveport historian
from "The Shreveport Journal" (Editorial)
February 1, 1997

"Shouts From the Wall" is the title of the current exhibit at the Meadows Museum of Art, located on the Centenary College campus. It is an exhibit of propaganda posters and photographs from the Spanish Civil War, which occurred in the 1930s when Spain became Europe's testing ground in the growing struggle between fascism and democracy. Little known is that Shreveport, too, was connected to that clash by volunteers.

The Spanish Civil War may seem far away -- someone else's war in another time. But it was really a conflict with worldwide significance -- and part of a social struggle that had already begun to engulf the world psychologically and soon would engulf it politically and economically.

Even today, well after the end of the Cold War, we are wary of terms such as "communist" and "socialist," which were American bugaboos from the 1950s forward. Almost forgotten is that as late as the 1930s, both concepts were seen by many as radical forms of democracy. And it was radical democracy that was necessary if radical fascism was to be eradicated.

Not everyone who went to Spain was a Marxist, of course, but contrary to later McCarthyist definitions, the Marxists who went as well as all the others who went -- were the truest of patriots. They saw the need to fight the menace of Nazism by any means necessary and their commitment to that cause helped lay the foundations for our involvement in World War II -- and the eventual defeat of the fascist powers.

The American corps of volunteers in Spain was called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It included among its numbers many from Louisiana, including at least one volunteer from Shreveport. His name was Harry Shepherd, a salesman who had attended Centenary College. We don't know much about Harry Shepherd, however. It is said he was a member of the same family who built the Shepherd Building at Milam and Louisiana downtown. He lived here until the mid-30s, but after that he disappears from city directories of the day. We know he fought in Spain but did he return? Did he live out his life elsewhere? Or was he among the casualties of the Spanish Civil War who died far from his native land, fighting for freedom?

Then there was Shreveporter Albert Clark, definitely not a socialist but as a Jew he had good reason to beware the fascist specter. A young doctor originally from Galveston, Texas, Clark treated wounded Lincoln Brigade members and was awarded a medal for his service in the defense of democracy. An outspoken opponent of both communism and fascism, he went on to serve in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II. He returned and practiced from offices in the old Medical Arts Building (now Travis Place). He died in 1990 and is buried at Aguadath Achm Orthodox Jewish Cemetery in the old West End neighborhood of Shreveport.

Both Shepherd and Clark were part of a movement that arose to battle the threat that had arisen to democracy throughout the world. In the Soviet Union the cult of Stalinism had supplanted the utopian ideals of communism which had led to the overthrow of the Czarist autocracy and had built a representative republic in Russia. Now, with Stalin, that republic had become a dictatorship. That was the communism we were taught to fear during the Cold War -- and with good reason. Hitler and his Nazi thugs came to power in the early 1930s and threatened to unravel every shred of personal, political, and religious freedom in that nation. They did, eventually destroying Europe and murdering millions in the process. In Italy, Mussolini's dictatorship allied itself with Hitler's and in Spain Francisco Franco, having forced his way to power, allowed the country to be used as a testing ground for the inevitable war between totalitarianism and liberty.

Democracy took on a militant air to match this formidable threat. So is it no wonder that in the United States, democracy took on the persona of Franklin Roosevelt and Huey Long. Long was perhaps the nation's most radical reformer, a radical proponent of militant democracy. Some called him "the Karl Marx of the Bayou" and his politics had a decidedly socialist twist. They also were the salvation of Louisiana during the Great Depression, as were the policies of Roosevelt's New Deal (based in part upon Long's ideas) the economic salvation of the nation as a whole during that most dismal of times.

The "Shouts From the Wall" exhibit will tour the nation after its Shreveport showing. Centenary College professor Jefferson Hendricks has been an important figure in scholarship regarding the role of the radical Left in American politics during the 20th century. It is largely through his efforts, among others, that this exhibit came to pass. Dr. Hendricks and Brandeis University Professor Cary Nelson have produced an important book on the Spanish Civil War entitled Madrid 1937, published by Routledge Press in 1996. It is not a history, per se, but rather a collection of previously unpublished letters by Lincoln Brigade members. In it the soldiers themselves tell the story of why they were in Spain and why that was important to the United States. Thus Jefferson Hendricks, like Harry Shepherd and Albert Clark, is yet another local connection to the Spanish Civil War and to the preservation of the memory of those whose conscience would not allow them to sit back while others suffered. These were truly unsung American heroes.

Reprinted with permission of the author and The Shreveport Journal