Biography

McDaniels was born in Mississippi in 1912. He left home at an early age and made his way to California. In San Francisco, Consuelo Kanaga, a well-known photographer, took him in. Under her tutelage McDaniels completed high school and studied art at San Francisco State College. While living in San Francisco, McDaniels developed ties to the labor movement and the Communist party, which he joined in 1930. In the early years of the Depression he returned to the South to help organize the Alabama Sharecroppers' Union. He was also involved in the Federal Writers Project of the WPA and published short stories in a WPA publication "Just Stuff." McDaniels traveled to Europe aboard the SS Ausonia on June 25,1937. In Spain, McDaniels was assigned to a transport unit as a truck driver. In early in 1938 he was transferred as an infantryman to the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and eventually to the Lincoln-Washington Battalion. During the Ebro Offensive Spanish Loyalist troops, awed by his prowess at grenade pitching, gave McDaniels the nickname "El Fantastico." Wounded in his left leg he spent the remainder of his time in Spain in hospitals. He returned to the United States, on the SS President Harding, on December 31, 1938. McDaniels returned to San Francisco, joined the Merchant Marine and worked as a cook. In 1940, he was elected to the post of Adjutant Commander of the VALB. During the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Coast Guard screened him from the Merchant Marine. McDaniels found employment at a factory in San Francisco and worked there until his retirement. He died on December 6, 1985.

ALB Archival Materials

Images

Luchell McDaniels in poncho, center, with unidentified volunteers. Betea, March 1938. (ALBA Collection)

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