john gerassi papers - salaria kea

“I tell you, those German and Italian kids!! They were so mad, they knew it wasn’t us, you know. They were so mad about their country. They want to say they weren’t any better than the Italians and the Germans. Because the Germans didn’t like the Jews, and we’re supposed to be a democratic country and we’re the same way with the Jews with the Blacks as the Germans were with the Jews." - Salaria Kea

African Americans had barely gained their freedom in the US for a few decades before the Spanish Civil War, but racism was still alive and well. Many blacks recognised the parallelism between the Jews' oppression and the Blacks' oppression. For this reason it was difficult for blacks to have faith in the idea of democratic America, and many, instead, turned to communism. 

Salaria, however, denied having been a member of the Communist Party. She asserts “I was no communist.” This offers a different perspective in regard to African American involvement in the cause. A pamphlet issued by The Negro Committee to Aid Spain, “A Negro Nurse in Republican Spain,” claims that “Salaria saw that her fate, the fate of the Negro Race, was inseparably tied up with their fate; that the Negro’s efforts must be allied with those of other minorities as the only insurance against an uncertain future.” It is true that Kea did a lot of activist work at home, as she petitioned to desegregate the nurse’s cafeteria in Harlem Hospital and asked for better working conditions in the maternity ward.

But Kea was not a political person. Unique to her response as to why she wanted to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War is that she does not address the racial aspect in her interview with John Gerassi. In response to Gerassi’s question as to whether she got involved with Civil Rights, Kea stated “I’ve never been involved in anything like that...I’ve never marched in any civil rights things, or anything like that.”

So despite having been the only black nurse, she did not go to Spain due to a feeling of duty from being communist, being black, or being oppressed.  Kea’s reason comes from a humanitarian perspective - she states that “I always wanted to work with the nuns to help the poor people. I think it was because I had received so much help.”